


keep you like an oath

by singsongsung



Series: tales of an endless heart [2]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Multi, archie andrews continues to feel wistful, leather jackets are super involved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-04 19:06:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10997100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singsongsung/pseuds/singsongsung
Summary: The very last time she puts herself together as Betty Cooper, all-American girl next door, she does it to meet Jughead’s foster parents.Or: Good girl Betty Cooper officially goes bad.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second work in a series. It isn't necessary to read the other work first, but it will help clarify the context of this one. This picks up halfway through the last chapter of "we were both young (when i first saw you)."
> 
> Title is from "Uma Thurman" by Fall Out Boy.

_how do we fall in love_  
_harder than a bullet could hit ya?_  
 _how do we fall apart_  
 _faster than a hairpin trigger?_  
\- bishop briggs, “river”

 

 

Betty is just shy of sixteen years old when she moves out of her childhood home, the decision made for her by her parents in the midst of a heated fight, insults hurled, dishes thrown and broken, her mother’s palm making stinging contact with her cheek.

She steps out into the night, finds herself steered into Fred Andrews’ truck, and then discovers herself sobbing uncontrollably in a trailer park, now a resident of Riverdale’s South side.

 

 

Jughead tucks her into his childhood bed, a twin with an old mattress and creaky springs, his hands very gentle around her, as if he could break her without even meaning to. He sits down next to her and slips his fingers into her hair.

“You need to get some sleep,” he murmurs, but she shakes her head. Her whole body is tense, wide awake - sleep isn’t even in the realm of possibility.

He slips off the bed, crouching on the floor so that he is at eye level with her, and holds her hand. He’s already put ointment and a bandage over some of the nastier cuts she dug into her palm with her fingernails. “What can I do, Betts?”

She shrugs the shoulder that isn’t pressed against the mattress and looks at his worried eyes, at his hand covering hers. “This,” she whispers.

 

 

The morning after, after her father said _no daughter of mine will act like a whore_ and her mother said _you are no longer my child_ and her sister wept and wept, Betty, still not quite sixteen years old, fights with her boyfriend about the future.

She wants to stay here, to live in this trailer, to be with Jug, to figure out who she is without her mother’s domineering presence hovering over her at every single moment. She made this choice the moment Alice demanded she cut Jughead out of her life - or else. She’d said no, and she intends to stick to her decision.

He tries to talk her out of it, his hands on her cheeks, fingers digging into her skin in desperation, eyes full of pleas that she refuses to heed.

“You can’t give up your life,” he says. “Your future. Betty, be realistic - ”

She touches his face in return, hands tender against the hint of stubble on his jaw. “I’m not going back, Jug. You don’t have to help me figure it out from here, but I’m not going back.”

“Betts,” he sighs, and maybe it isn’t fair, but she kisses him, pressing herself close to him, and the conversation is paused.

It’s like the first time, the _almost_ time, his hands sliding over her thighs as he picks her up, the knob of a cupboard digging painfully into her back as he sets her up atop the counter, his mouth on her neck as she pulls at his clothes.

Afterward, he presses a kiss into the valley between her breasts. Against her skin, he stubbornly murmurs, “I still don’t agree.”

 

 

In the end Archie breaks the tie, when he comes over to make sure they’re okay. He watches them argue, looking increasingly uncomfortable, until he finally jumps in, and, to her surprise, instead of advocating that she return to her old home, her old Betty Cooper ways, he supports her.

Outnumbered, Jughead takes her battered hands in his, looks her right in the eye, and with a sigh, finally acquiesces.

 

 

For the first few days of her new, unrestricted life, Betty feels raw and reckless. When she falls into her first sound sleep since the blow-up with her parents, it is in the afternoon, and she spends the next night awake watching movies with Jughead and falls asleep in the morning, her sleep schedule turned on its head. She makes Jughead help her take everything out of the kitchen cupboards so she can rearrange them to her liking; she scours the sink, the stove, the inside of the fridge. She bakes the extra-gooey, extra-chewy chocolate chip cookies she used to only make for bake sales, because she and Polly grew up to the refrain _a moment on the lips, forever on the hips_ , and she actually eats some of them.

In the middle of watching a Korean horror movie that is, quite frankly, horrifying her, she doesn’t curl into Jughead’s shoulder but instead climbs into his lap, legs on either side of his hips, and slips her tongue into his mouth. She relishes the soft, hissing noises he makes when she digs her fingernails into his skin; she relishes the intensity with which he grips her hips. He breathes _fuck, Betty_ when she lowers herself onto him, and she feels drunk with some kind of power.

Betty sits on the steps leading up to the trailer door, which always feel wobbly, a moment from collapsing, and tosses a large stick for Hot Dog, who barrels after it joyfully and brings it back covered with slobber. Sitting there in a wrinkled sundress with her feet bare, it occurs to her that she looks like a girl she’d never felt connected to before - like a girl from a movie, a girl from a distant, unknowable life.

For a moment, there is a lump in her throat, but then Hot Dog drops his stick at her feet, panting, and she swallows around it. “Hey, boy,” she says. “I think we both deserve a cookie.”

 

 

She knows that she’s generating some concern. Her parents stop paying her phone bill; she texts Archie from Jughead’s cheap, pay-as-you-go phone to let him know, complete with an eye-rolling emoji to indicate that this is a minor inconvenience that she barely even cares about, and an hour later Veronica hops out of an uber in front of the trailer, carrying a new iPhone, a SIM card, and even a floral-printed case. She waves away Betty’s protests, insisting that it’s the smallest of expenses to add a new phone to the plan she and her mother already share.

Betty’s new phone gets frequents texts. There are those from Veronica, chipper and upbeat, occasionally peppered with purposefully casual phrases like _text me if you want to talk later!_ or _i’d interrupt my beauty sleep to take a call from u, B._ Kevin is always inviting her to do things that he can pay for: _keep me company for a haircut? want to grab lunch 2morrow? Betty you know I can’t go shopping without you!_ Archie sends pictures of things he’s seen online that he thinks will make her laugh. She even gets texts from Cheryl, who is acting as the Cooper sisters’ go-between and sends pictures and updates about the twins.

She is touched by the fact that they care so much about her, that they want to make sure she’s okay, but she also feels overwhelmed by it. _I can’t be who I was_ , she wants to write back to them. _She was falling apart._ Betty wants to tell them, _She was making me crazy._

Above all, when her phone’s screen lights up, she wants to type, _I hope that, if I’m different, you’ll still love me._

 

 

The very last time she puts herself together as Betty Cooper, all-American girl next door, she does it to meet Jughead’s foster parents. He’s told her quite a bit about them - they’re in their sixties, with a daughter who has grown up and moved out. He’s told her that they’re nice, and Betty is happy about that. But they’re also the parents the state has assigned Jughead, and they want him to sleep in the bedroom they put together for him, where they can look out for him, and not in his father’s abandoned trailer. She knows it will be a tall order to convince them otherwise.

She puts on a soft pink blouse with a faint floral pattern, a khaki skirt that is tight at her waist but flares out to just above the knee, modestly covering her thighs. She puts on the barely-there, pretty pink lipstick her mother always liked her to wear and just one layer of mascara to emphasize her sad, innocent eyes. She doesn’t have any of her ballet flats anymore, but she figures her pink Converse sneakers will fit the message she’s trying to send well enough.

Jughead blinks when he sees her, doing a double-take. “Hell,” he says, impressed. “Nice to see you, 2015 Betty Cooper.”

She laughs and says, “Nice to see you, 2017 Jughead Jones.” He’s still appraising her, and she thinks maybe he likes what he sees, the good girl who has, since she’s been with him, gone bad. She offers him a small, flirty smirk. “I can’t wait to kiss you next year.”

 

 

Jughead’s foster parents _are_ nice, and she can tell that they’re thinking the same thing about her as they look at her sitting on FP’s sofa with her legs crossed primly at the ankle: _isn’t Betty a nice girl_.

As Jughead explains the situation, she can see his foster mom melt, her eyes getting sadder, tinged with pity, as she looks at Betty, at this nice girl in her flower-patterned shirt and sweet little skirt and bright pink sneakers.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she says. “What a terrible mess.”

Jughead’s foster father frowns, lines deep in his face. “If her parents have truly disowned her,” he says to his wife, “isn’t she a ward of the state?”

“Nothing’s official,” Jughead jumps in quickly. “There was a huge argument, yes, but… tempers, uh, might… cool down. Betty cares about school, and about her future, and she’s not going to get into any trouble. My dad says it’s fine if we stay here, and it’s probably just temporary. After everything she’s been through in the last year, she really doesn’t need a whole new ordeal.” He rubs sweaty palms against his knees. “I know you barely know me, and I know this is a lot to ask, but… I am. Asking.” He clears his throat. “Please let me stay here with her.”

The frown on Jug’s foster dad’s face doesn’t ease up at all, so Betty makes the most innocent face in her arsenal, big doe eyes and fluttery lashes, biting her lip briefly before she echoes, in her sweetest voice, “Please.”

Jughead’s foster mother is gone after that. A long discussion follows - rules are set, phone calls and visits to check in are decided on, agreements made that the whole arrangement is off if Jughead doesn’t obey the rules - and Betty sinks back into the sofa cushions as they talk, slowly releasing her hands from their painfully tight fists.

 

 

To celebrate their adult freedom, they drink like teenagers - or Betty does, at least; Jughead is the kind of guy who nurses a single beer all night and sometimes doesn’t even finish it, which she knows, without having the ask, has to do with the trajectory’s of his father’s life.

Archie and Veronica come over and Veronica mixes Betty fruity-tasting drinks that she swallows like water. She should know better, because she’s always been a sleepy drunk, but she’s not listening to the anxious voices flitting through her head as much as she used to, so she ends up sprawled across the couch, heavy-lidded, with her head on a pillow in Veronica’s lap. Next to them, the boys sit on the floor; Jughead is trying to teach Archie to play crib.

Veronica’s hands are soft in Betty’s hair, creating small braids that she proceeds to braid together. She has always been soft with Betty, always eager to nurture their friendship, but lately it’s even more extreme.

“Did I scare you?” Betty asks softly, without looking up at the other girl. Archie is drunkenly protesting the rules of the game and the boys are laughing, paying them no attention. “That night with Chuck?”

Veronica’s hands still for a beat before she begins working again. “No, B. You surprised me, but you didn’t scare me.”

“I scared myself,” Betty confesses. “I still do, sometimes.” She shifts onto her back so that she can look at Veronica’s face. “You know, my mom hit me. Slapped me, I guess I should say.”

Brows creased in concern, Veronica says, “Yeah… Archie told me.”

“I think I felt… happy about it.” She presses her lips together. “I know that sounds crazy, but I felt like - good. I thought, _good_. Like - _good, just hit me_.” Betty realizes she might sound drunk. “Like I could take it. I could take that. I was just tired of being so scared of myself.”

“Oh, B,” Veronica murmurs, looking sad.

Betty pushes herself up onto her elbows, her face suddenly much closer to Veronica’s. “I really don’t want you to worry about me, V.”

Despite what Betty’s just said, the sadness remains in Veronica’s expression, but her reply is steady and firm: “I’ve never worried about you, Betty. I know I don’t need to. I just… want you to be okay.”

“Yeah,” Betty sighs. She puts her head back down on the pillow, and five minutes later, she’s asleep.

 

 

She feels a little shy about putting her things in the trailer, about acting like she lives there. She doesn’t want Jughead to see her tampons in the bathroom cabinet, doesn’t want him to know that she slathers her face with a charcoal mask once a week to keep her skin looking good, doesn’t want him to know that she has a pair of pyjama pants printed with various Care Bears.

As he makes her coffee in the morning, Betty fidgets in the kitchen, feeling nervous. “Do you think - do you think my moving in here takes… I don’t know, all of the _mystery_ out of us?”

Jughead puts a healthy amount of milk and sugar in her coffee, the way she likes it - no matter how much they toy with it, FP’s almost-broken coffeemaker only produces a very dark brew. “Yes,” he says somberly. “Definitely. Now that I know you use whitening toothpaste, all my illusions are broken.”

Betty cracks a smile and rolls her eyes. “Juggie… ”

He hands her the mug and she cups it in both hands. “I love you,” he tells her, and kisses her nose. “Warts and all.”

 

 

Beneath the reckless way she’s been feeling in the midst of her new life, Betty is still Betty, still responsible, still serious, still a girl who makes plans. She knows she’ll have to work very hard for the next two years of her life, if she wants to have enough money to get out of Riverdale and go to college for journalism.

So she gets a job at Pop’s. She walks in with a neatly typed resume and babbles a bit about how she has no waitressing experience but she’s a very hard worker and she’s willing to do anything he needs, how she promises to learn quickly and work whatever shifts need filling.

He doesn’t even look at her resume, just says, “Sure, honey,” and finds her a yellow uniform to try on.

 

 

In the past few months, Betty knows the Serpents haven’t asked much of Jughead; she was and continues to be happy about that, grateful for it. He runs money sometimes but promises her that he never runs drugs. His main use seems to be showing up with the Serpents when they’re engaged in some sort of intimidation; all he has to do is stand there, FP Jones’ son, and his very presence is a threat.

She never asks him much about it and he volunteers little information. Their unspoken arrangement is that Jughead tells her about Serpent business on a need-to-know basis.

He often leaves Hot Dog with her if he’s going to be out late, and Betty will read a book or find something to clean or curl up on Jughead’s bed with her laptop and watch _Clueless_. She doesn’t mind the quiet nights, and she doesn’t feel afraid, especially not with the dog flopped on the floor nearby.

Betty is perfectly fine with how things are, but when she lets it slip to Veronica that Jughead is busy on an upcoming Friday night, she finds herself in Veronica’s apartment, being ordered in and out of outfits, getting ready for a night of dancing.

 

 

Veronica invites Reggie and Archie, which puzzles Betty slightly, because she suspects Veronica is half-involved with both boys, and they pile into a car to drive to a club closer to the city. Betty sits, squished between Veronica and the door, in a borrowed black dress that’s short and tight, glittery shadow and false lashes on her eyes.

The boys are goofing around and Veronica is laughing, sweet and flirty, and Betty remembers that she’s still in high school, that the world is not all serious or terrible, and decides to have fun.

Veronica’s chosen club is loud and busy, and Betty feels the familiar, heavy thump of anxiety in her chest, sweat beginning to bead on her forehead almost immediately, but then Veronica grabs her arm and yells, “This _song_!” and drags her to the dance floor, and Betty gives in to her friend and laughs, throws her arms up and just dances.

On the dance floor, Veronica pays more attention to Betty than to either of the guys, her arms winding around Betty’s neck, her voice singing lyrics by Betty’s ear. Betty’s relieved that there isn’t any awkward pairing-off and she sings right back to Veronica, yelling out the words to her favourite songs, feeling the beat through the floor. She laughs and rolls her eyes when Reggie loops his arms around both of them, passionately singing his own off-key rendition of some popular song.

Archie takes Betty’s hand and twirls her under his arm, once, twice, thrice, until she’s laughing and dizzy. “Are you having fun?” he yells when she grabs his shoulder to steady herself.

She nods, smiling at him, and he flashes her two thumbs up, a dorky move that makes her smile widen before Veronica appears between them, linking her arms through both of theirs, and shouts, “Drinks!”

 

 

Veronica goes to buy the drinks since she’s the one with a convincing fake ID, and Archie heads for the washroom, leaving Betty sitting at a small table with Reggie. She smoothes sweaty strands of hair off her face and blinks, still a little thrown by the eyelashes she’s wearing.

Reggie gives her an appraising look. “Holy shit, Betty Cooper,” he says, nodding his approval. “Who would’ve thought?”

“Who would’ve thought what?”

“You… and all this.” He waves a hand lazily in the air. “The underage drinking - ”

“It’s one cosmo, Reggie.”

“ - shaking your stuff on the dance floor - ”

Betty’s cheeks go warm. “I was not _shaking_ anything - ”

“ - living with your gangbanger boyfriend - ”

“He’s not a gangbanger,” she cuts in, and this time it’s a firmer contradiction, free of any playfulness.

Reggie holds up his hands and grins. “Like this,” he says, nodding to her as if she’s proven his point. “B. Coop got all fiery.” He sets his hands down on the table. “Lots of twists in your story, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty twisty,” Betty agrees wryly, but she doesn’t feel embarrassed like she might have once.

Lately, those twisty parts of her are feeling more and more okay.

 

 

Betty gets Veronica’s driver to drop her off at the Whyte Wyrm. It’s late, closing in on three in the morning, but Jug had said he’d text when he left, and she hasn’t received a message yet.

The bar is fairly quiet apart from some music playing, the sounds of cues hitting balls in a game of a pool, and one rowdier group in a back corner. Betty pauses once she walks in, letting her eyes adjust to the dim lighting and peering around. She spots Jughead sitting at the bar, heads for him, and is accosted halfway there by a Serpent she’s never seen before, his hair pulled back in a ponytail and a predatory grin on his face.

“You look lost, sugar,” he says, full of faux sympathy.

“Fuck off, Jake,” Jughead’s voice says before Betty can even begin to think of a response. He’s standing now and has a snarling expression on his face that startles her a bit.

Jake backs off immediately. “Didn’t realize she was your girl, Jones.”

“That’s a creepy move even if she was single,” Jughead replies, frown deep on his face as he moves toward Betty. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she says, trying to shake off the weird encounter, the shock at the expression he’d been wearing moments ago.

Jughead kisses her, quick and soft, and then looks her up and down. “Hey,” he says again, seeming at a loss for any other words.

“V dressed me,” Betty explains, biting her lip.

“You look… incredible,” he says. “Different, but… ” He smiles at her, his gaze finding her eyes beneath her long lashes. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“I guess,” she teases, “but I do have a boyfriend.”

 

 

They sip drinks at the bar, Jughead’s hand curled loosely around the inside of one of her thighs. Betty is introduced to a couple other Serpents but mostly she watches them, as subtly as she can, and knows they’re watching her.

On the walk back to the trailer, Jughead keeps looking at her, at her bare thighs and at the swell of her breasts, which Betty’s borrowed dress emphasizes. His hand rests low on her waist and he kisses her shoulder, her ear; her body buzzes with anticipation.

But when they get home he doesn’t throw her against anything, just pushes her dress up and tugs off her underwear and makes love to her soft and sweet on his old, small bed, so gentle with her it brings tears to her eyes.

“Juggie, what is it?” she asks quietly afterward, when they’re laying side by side, pressed close, looking up at the ceiling.

“I’m sorry about Jake,” he says. “That guy at the bar.” He wipes a smudge of eyeliner off her cheek.

“It’s okay,” she says immediately. “It wasn’t that big a deal.”

He studies her face for so long that she feels a bit breathless, worried about what he’ll say when he decides to speak, but in the end he just says, “You look so beautiful tonight.”

Betty smiles, rolling toward him, onto her side, and tugging the blanket up over her legs. “Reggie thinks I’m cool now,” she says, laughing a little.

Jughead smiles back at her, his eyes soft, and slips fingers into her hair. “You must be honoured.”

“Yeah, I’ve been waiting my whole life for the Mantle seal of approval,” she jokes.

“Am I going to have to be jealous?”

“Oh, yeah.” Betty yawns, turning her face into the pillow momentarily. “I can’t wait to wear his letterman jacket.”

“Always knew you’d break my heart, Betty Cooper,” Jughead says lightly.

“Shut up,” she murmurs, a smile in her voice, and seconds later, she’s sound asleep.

 

 

tbc.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your feedback! Y'all are so lovely, and I appreciate it so much.

Summer fades away. 

Betty’s birthday passes with little fanfare, celebrated with an early afternoon barbecue since she’s working the evening at Pop’s. Cheryl brings Polly and the twins, Jason and Lizzie; Polly brings all the ingredients for a salad; Veronica brings an elaborate, expensive cake, three bottles of champagne, and a ridiculously large balloon; Archie brings steaks to grill; Kevin brings plastic champagne flutes from the dollar store and a tiara for Betty to wear on her head. 

The tulips Jughead snuck out to buy her early that morning sit on the kitchen table, carefully arranged in a makeshift vase. All of her offers to help are turned down, so while the boys grill and Veronica helps Polly put the salad together, Betty sits with Cheryl in the living room, the two of them playing with the babies. 

“This isn’t much of a sweet sixteen,” Cheryl says. Her voice isn’t haughty but dismayed, like she’s sad for Betty. 

“I don’t mind,” Betty laughs. “I don’t think I ever would have had the kind of blow-out bash you and Jason did.” 

Cheryl smiles wistfully. “That was the best.” 

“One day, we’ll throw these two that kind of party,” Betty says firmly. She presses kisses against her nephew Jason’s cheeks, making him laugh. “Won’t we?” she asks him warmly. “Hm?” 

She looks at Cheryl Blossom and thinks it’s totally bizarre how completely their lives are intertwined now, how Betty will always know Cheryl and Cheryl will always know her, how they’re effectively family now. Of all the ways life has shifted in the past year, that is, perhaps, the most startling. 

“Ugh, we’ll be old aunts by then,” Cheryl says, sounding somewhat horrified, her nose wrinkling delicately. But then she sighs, and smiles again, and says, “It’s a date.” 

 

 

Her gifts are essentially a back-to-school shopping spree put together by stylists Veronica, Kevin, and Cheryl. Her friends and her sister have pooled their money to buy her new jeans, three new shirts in colours she never would have worn before, olive green and deep burgundy and black, a t-shirt dress that is both pretty and simple, and, to her surprise, a dark brown leather jacket. 

“Gotta match your boy, right?” Veronica asks with a wink, Kevin mumbling behind her about how he still thinks Betty would’ve preferred the denim jacket with the daisy appliqués. 

“Thank you, V,” Betty says softly, overwhelmed. “Thank you, all of you. This is way too much.” 

“Stop,” Archie and Veronica say in unison, and Veronica smiles and nods to the jacket as she adds, “Try it on!” 

In the photograph that Betty will save as the background on her phone, she and Jughead look like matching opposites, his jacket worn in and black, hers brand new and a softer brown; her shiny, silver tiara contrasting his beanie crown. Those are the qualities that make Veronica giggle as she takes the picture, but it’s them, her and Jughead, beneath all of that, that makes Betty feel sappy and warm, the sight of her face crinkled with laughter, eyes closed and nose scrunched, as he plants a kiss on her cheek. 

 

 

He drops her off at Pop’s that evening, the sun still burning in the sky, and says, “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for you today,” and Betty leans across the space between their seats and kisses him firmly, says, “You did everything.” 

In the diner, she stacks plates neatly and polishes silverware, singing along softly with The Runaways on the jukebox, “Hello, world, I’m your wild girl… ”

Jughead picks her up just after midnight, when her shift is over, and she falls asleep during the short drive, her forehead against the cool glass of the window. He wakes her when they reach the trailer with a soft kiss on her lips, and Betty smiles before she’s fully awake again. 

Her sixteenth birthday is a good one.

 

 

Betty returns to Riverdale High for her junior year and gets _looks_ in the hallway. She can hear the whispers floating by her: _She ran away from home. She lives with her_ boyfriend. _She’s a Serpent now. Bet she’ll get pregnant like her sister. Bet she’ll drop out before the year is over._

“Ignore them,” Veronica scoffs, linking her arm through Betty’s. “They’re only gossiping because their own lives are so painfully boring.” 

Kevin falls in step with them. “If you want, I can kiss Veronica and start a scandalous discussion about my sexuality. That should keep them busy for a day or two.” 

Betty laughs. “Guys, it’s fine. I’m fine.” 

“You’re not missing Mr. Rochester too much?” Veronica asks sympathetically. 

Betty’s eyebrows lift. “I’m Jane Eyre now?” 

“You escaped from a repressive home, you live with a mysterious man now, you solved a complicated mystery… ” Veronica shrugs. “I stand by the comparison.” 

“So who’s the woman Jughead’s hidden in his attic?” 

“Luckily for you,” Kevin says breezily, “trailers don’t have attics.” He slides an arm around Betty’s shoulders and gives her a quick squeeze, and then hurries off to class when the bell rings. 

Veronica doesn’t leave. “You sure you’re okay, B?” 

Betty gives her a look that’s half-exasperated, half-fond. “You don’t have to check on me everyday, you know.” 

Veronica looks briefly embarrassed. “I know, it’s just kind of… instinct, now.” She offers Betty a smile. “Hashtag protect Betty Cooper 2k17.” 

“Hashtag actually attend Spanish class this year,” Betty replies, giving Veronica a nudge down the hallway. 

Pointing a finger at her, Veronica says, “Hashtag I better see you at lunch.” 

“You will,” Betty promises on a soft laugh, watching Veronica stride down the hallway like it’s her own personal runway before she turns and heads for the Blue & Gold office. 

 

 

It does feel strange to be at school without Jughead. Once they got together, and even before, this was the place she was always guaranteed to see him, regardless of what else was going on in their respective lives. Now, Betty is the only member of the Blue & Gold staff, the partner she automatically chose in Biology class is missing, and she can actually eat all her lunch, because Jughead isn’t sitting on her left like he used to be, eyeing her food. 

She doesn’t worry about Jug being at Southside, not like she did at first - she knows he’s actually doing pretty well there, acing his classes and making friends. But sometimes she does, like a wide-eyed heroine in a Brontë novel, long for the boy she loves. 

 

 

Betty remains a River Vixen, and busts her butt trying to revive the school paper yet again, and tutors seventh- and eighth-graders in reading comprehension and algebra, and sits on prom committee, and signs up for another year as a peer mentor. She is good at school and extracurriculars and time management (even if it sometimes means sleepless nights and nails dug deep into her palms); none of this is new for her. At Riverdale High, Betty Cooper is the same as she always was, singularly focused, determinedly good at everything. 

It is her life outside of school that is different. It is cooking her own dinner most nights, trying to create some sort of balanced meal out of a strict budget and a barely-stocked fridge, doling out instructions to Jughead, who cuts up vegetables like it’s an action he’s somewhat uncomfortable with. It is working at Pop’s and coming home not to her cushy, girly room but to Jughead’s childhood bedroom with its threadbare rug, her feet aching and her eyes tired. It is a shower that always runs cold too quickly, so she often showers with her boyfriend, the two of them moving quickly in the minuscule space, laughing, Betty’s shampoo-covered hands in Jughead’s hair, both of them trying not to get distracted by each other’s bare skin, racing the arrival of cold water that always makes her shriek, no matter how many times it happens. It is sleeping in Jughead’s small bed, pressed against him even in the summer heat, sheets tangled around her legs, wearing only a baggy t-shirt rather than a matching pyjama set. 

When Betty looks out her window, she no longer sees the warm light of Archie’s bedroom and her childhood best friend playing guitar, or frowning at a textbook, or checking out his abs in the mirror. She sees gravel on the ground, and the slightly stained siding of the closest trailer, half-lit by a street lamp with a dying bulb. 

She lives with Jughead for three months before she learns that her current view is one her own mother used to have, before she traded it in for the view of a manicured lawn, the quiet tree-lined street, the sweet boy next door - the view that Betty grew up with. 

 

 

The revelation is given to her (handed to her so casually, like it isn’t a piece of history so startling that it makes her feel like the world is spinning) on a Thursday, late in the evening, when she and Jughead make a stop on the way home from Pop’s. 

She trails after him as he approaches a group of Serpents hanging out at a garage. Most of them know her now, at least by sight; _Jug’s girl_ , they’ll say, _from the North,_ which makes her feel, stupidly, like a damn _Game of Thrones_ character, some Northern girl invading snake-filled Dorne. It also makes her feminist shackles rise (she has a name, after all), but she knows that this is how identity works, here. Jughead is FP’s son, and she is Jughead’s girl. 

Jughead gives her hip a quick squeeze, murmurs, “Ten minutes,” by her ear, and then slips into the building to talk to some of the older men. Betty stays outside in her waitress uniform and her Veronica-approved leather jacket, arms wrapped loosely around herself. She’s intimidated by the Serpents, but she doesn’t feel too afraid of them anymore. 

There are a couple guys in the garage, not that much older than Betty, working on their bikes, and a man with greying hair whose head is stuck under the hood of an old Mustang. She inches a little closer, curious despite herself. She hears a little clang in the engine and he mutters, “ _Son of a bitch…_ ” 

Betty tiptoes just a little closer, picks up some locking pliers, and holds them out. “Need these?” 

He looks up and seems entirely confused by her presence for a moment, taking in her uniform and her tight ponytail, and then looks down at the pliers in her hands, his face registering even greater surprise. “Yeah,” he says gruffly. He takes them and gets to work again. “What’s a girl like you know about cars?” 

“Lots,” Betty says. “Or at least, some.” She smiles at him tentatively. “Can I help? I’ve never seen the inside of one of these.” 

The man glances up at her again, appraises her ( _Jug’s girl_ ), and then says, “Why the hell not.” 

She mostly just hands him things, and asks questions about the car; it’s a familiar pattern, like she’s in her old driveway with her father again, though she tries not to let that thought linger. 

He tosses her a rag when she gets a smudge of grease on her cheek. “I’m Kipper, by the way,” he says, and Betty, who is living with a boy named Jughead, does not even blink. “What’s your name, kiddo?” 

“Betty,” she says, trying to rub her cheek clean. “Betty Cooper.” 

He stares at her for a moment, more intently than the first time, and she worries briefly that she’s just created a giant grease stain on her cheek, and then he says, “Well, fuck me. Your Alice’s little one.” 

She almost drops the rag. “Yes,” she says softly, slowly. “I’m the youngest.” 

Kipper shakes head, smiling. “You look a hell of a lot like your mother.” 

Betty feels her eyes go wide. “You know her? My mother? Alice Cooper?” _Blonde hair, pencil skirts, wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this?_ she’s tempted to add. 

“Yeah, I knew Alice. She wasn’t a Cooper back then.” He chuckles to himself. “She was bossy, beautiful… could wrap boys around her pinky finger. I don’t imagine you’re much different.”

Betty’s mind cannot keep up. “I’m sorry, I - _when_ did you know her?” 

“When she lived here. When we were kids.” 

“Here, as in… ”

Kipper looks at her like she’s crazy. “As in the South side. We both lived in Sunnyside.” 

The only word Betty can manage to say is: “Oh.” 

“She never told you,” he concludes after a beat. “Eh, makes sense. As soon as she got out of here, we were all thugs and trailer trash.” 

Betty is saved from replying by Jughead’s reappearance. “Ready, Betts?” he asks, and then takes in the look on her face and frowns. “What is it? What happened?” He looks at the grease on her cheek, the rag in her hand, looks at Kipper and then at the younger guys over on the other side of the garage, and can’t find an immediate source for her expression. “Betty.” He touches her upper arm; he’s wound up, tension in his shoulders.“What’s wrong, what happened?” 

She snaps herself out of it and puts her palm on his cheek. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine.” She sets the rag down. “I was just… daydreaming.” 

Jughead glances at Kipper again and then back at her. “What were you doing?” 

She offers him a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Embracing my inner grease monkey.” 

“Betts… ”

“Juggie,” she says firmly. “I’m fine. Let’s go, okay? Let’s go.” She offers Kipper a quick, polite smile. “It was nice to meet you.” 

“You too, Betty,” he says, already looking back at the engine, and even though her mind is in overdrive, even though her chest feels tight and hot with betrayal, it registers that now, at least for one Serpent, she has a name. 

 

 

Betty paces back and forth across the trailer’s small living room, unable to stand still, her cheeks burning with heat. “It’s just - just the _hypocrisy_ , Jug,” she murmurs, fuming. “The way she always treated you, the way she treated me for _being_ with you - ”

“Betty,” he cuts in, his voice quiet and calm. He reaches both hands toward her, pulls her fingers out of the fists they’re clenched into, and then lets her go. 

She flexes her fingers, resisting the urge to curl them inward again. “She told me that if I moved here, I wasn’t her daughter anymore.” She shakes her head. “No daughter of hers would slum it on the South side.” 

“It was a control thing,” Jughead says in the same calm voice. “You know that. You were making decisions she didn’t agree with.” 

“If only she’d just been _honest_ with me,” Betty breathes, finally sitting down in the armchair, her anger-induced energy running out. “She’d never let anything in our family be real, but maybe if she had… ”

“Loathe as I am to take Alice Cooper’s side, I have to play devil’s advocate.” Jughead rests his elbows on his knees. “You see where she was coming from, don’t you? Even if she got it all wrong, even if your relationship with your mother is in pieces and that’s partially because of all the lies she told you, you know that at the root of it… she wanted the best for you and Polly.” He sighs. “Come on, stop looking at me like I’m defending Satan.” 

Betty huffs a little laugh at that, but her pout doesn’t quite disappear. Jughead gets up and joins her in the armchair, pulling her halfway onto his lap. 

“Imagine that you worked really hard to get Hot Dog into a prestigious canine academy, and then he turned around and ran back here and started sleeping in the dirt.” 

She rests her cheek against his shoulder and says, softly, “I’d want him to be happy.” 

“I know,” he says gently. “But that’s because you’re you.”

She toys with his hands, lacing their fingers together. “But it’s the same, isn’t it? I’m… god, I’m my mother’s daughter. She left here because she couldn’t stand it. And I left her because I couldn’t bear it.” 

“You know, I hear they can be hard,” he says, almost but not quite a joke, “those pesky relationships with parents.” 

“My whole life, I worked so hard to make her proud,” Betty murmurs. “And then I became the person she used to be. The person she wanted to pretend had never even existed.”

“You’re not your mother, Betts,” Jughead tells her firmly. “Past or present.”

She slides her arm around his neck and looks into his face. “You know, you said something like that to me right before the first time you kissed me.” 

“It’s my very best move,” he says, eyes on her lips. “Works every time.” 

Betty kisses him, and he kisses her back the way he always does, like he’s greedy for her, like she’s something he never stops wanting. She practically purrs against his lips, pressing her chest against his, and half a second later his hand is under her dress, in her bra, thumb flicking against her nipple. 

“You’ve got grease on your face,” he murmurs, sounding distracted as he shifts them around in the chair, kissing down her neck. 

“Mm,” Betty sighs, and then tells him, deadpan, “I am a very dirty girl.” 

He snorts a laugh against her skin and then his mouth is on her breasts and Betty’s pulling his beanie off, sinking her hands into his hair, and when his eyes find hers and he asks, mouth just a breath away from her body, “How dirty, exactly?” she blushes and says, “ _Juggie_ ,” and he says, with a hint of a wolfish grin, “It’s a very serious question.” 

Pink-cheeked, Betty slips her body out from under his, landing on her knees on the floor, and because Jughead is an author, she decides to show, not tell. 

 

 

Betty wants to tell her sister about their mother, but Polly’s phone is being strictly monitored by Alice - she can only reach Polly through Cheryl, who conveys her messages in an overly complicated code. Cheryl might sort of be her sister-in-law, or some kind of second-cousin a few times removed, but Betty isn’t about to start spilling family secrets to her. 

So she writes a letter and gives it to Archie. He looks at her with earnest eyes, promises not to read it, and promises to get it to Polly surreptitiously. 

“I’ll keep it on the down low,” he says seriously, which makes her smile. 

As he puts the letter in his backpack, he asks, “So how are things going?” 

“Pretty well,” Betty says, sitting down on the student lounge sofa next to him. “How about you? How are things going with… Veronica?” she asks carefully; neither of her best friends have been forthcoming about what’s going on in their relationship. 

“Things with Ronnie are… weird. We’re not together.”

“But you want to be?” Betty guesses. 

“I don’t know.” Archie rubs at his hair with one hand. “She’s kind of seeing Reggie, still, and… ”

Betty tilts her head to look into his face. “And what?”

He sighs. “And she thinks I’m still hung up on you.” 

Nervously, she licks her lips. “You’re… not, though. Right?”

“I don’t know, Betts,” he says on another sigh. “I mean… I hope so. I’m happy that you and Jug are happy, I really am, and when I was with Cheryl, it was good, it just kind of fizzled out, and I do like Ronnie, I just… ” He looks at her with his mouth downturned at the corners. “I just miss you. Not even like _that_ ; I just miss my best friend.” 

“I’m still here, Arch,” she says softly. Her hand hovers near his arm, but she decides against touching him. 

“Yeah, but you’re also… not. You know?” 

Betty tries to see herself as Kipper must have seen her, as Archie must see her, Alice Cooper’s perfect daughter abandoning her comfortable life and striking out into one infinitely more complicated, still looking like the all-American girl she’d tried to be for so long but no longer acting like it, opening all the doors her mother had tried to keep closed. 

She nods, just once. “I know.” 

 

tbc.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s funny, Betty thinks, how you can know someone for so long and still have so much to learn about them. In the past year, she feels like she’s been hit in the face with one revelation after another, each one surprising her all over again. Her sleepy hometown was not full of the cookie-cutter innocence it tried to project. Her sister, who she’s loved so dearly for her whole life, never told Betty about the seriousness of her relationship, about her pregnancy, about her plan to run away. Her boy next door wasn’t interested in being the high school sweetheart she’d marry someday; her boy next door was, in fact, sleeping with the music teacher. Her last name wasn’t even really Cooper - a couple generations ago, she would’ve been a Blossom. 

It had all been hard to grapple with, but the new information about her mother is a different beast. Betty can still remember her little-girl adoration of her mother, before she’d been old enough for Alice to start warning her about boys and drinks in solo cups and the dangers of a mid-range GPA. She’d thought her mother was so beautiful, the prettiest woman in town, and so wise, always at hand to solve Betty’s problems. There was a time in her life - long ago, but still - when Alice would say _I love you, Elizabeth_ , and it would sound not like a threat but a promise. Now, Alice won’t even acknowledge that Betty exists, just like she won’t acknowledge her own past, and the number of things Betty knows that her mother will never admit to exhausts her. 

But around and through all of that, all of those things that knocked her down, are the things she learns about Jughead. 

Betty’s known him since they were four years old, having met him in the Andrews’ backyard, but ever since he climbed through her window (a surprise in and of itself), ever since he kissed her (another surprise), she’s been collecting little pieces of Jughead that she’s never seen before. It’s more than knowing what he looks like naked, more than the heart-melting way her name sounds in his mouth now. 

It’s the fact that he keeps a photo of himself and his sister tucked into the back of whatever book he’s currently reading, an old photo, touched and folded many times over. She knows that he unapologetically loves _The Princess Bride_. She knows that he never stays still when he brushes his teeth - once the brush is in his mouth, he wanders around, looking thoughtful. She knows that he will not eat iceberg lettuce ( _it’s just green, leafy water, Betty_ ). She knows that when he’s particularly enamoured of her, looking at her with the eyes that make her knees weak, or particularly aroused by her, looking at her with the eyes that make something inside her twist pleasurably, he’ll call her _baby_ , and no matter how much she wants to make fun of him for it sometimes, no matter how much she wants to make teasing _Dirty Dancing_ references, she never can, because when he says that, when he calls her that, Betty can basically feel herself going starry-eyed.

The truth is that amidst all the crazy things that have been thrown into her world lately, the one that is the craziest and the best of all is that she’s head-over-heels in love with Jughead Jones, and it’s a feeling that fills her heart and soothes the healing scars in the middle of her palms, a feeling she holds onto so tightly that, sometimes, it almost hurts. 

 

 

The school year trudges along, and even as a kicked-out teen living with her boyfriend, Betty’s life falls into a relatively predictable pattern. She does homework, works on the paper, is snapped at by Cheryl during River Vixens practice, laughs with Archie and Veronica and Kevin during lunch, works her shifts at Pop’s, plays with Hot Dog, and finds, in her busy schedule, the occasional quiet evening to spend with Jughead on the sofa, watching a movie in the darkness and then slipping into his lap or pulling his body down over hers when the credits roll. 

Halloween rolls around soon enough, and Betty finds herself shopping with Veronica for costumes. 

“I’m going to be Scarlett O’Hara and Archie’s going to be Rhett,” Veronica tells her, rifling through full-skirted dresses. “Honestly, I’m pretty sure he didn’t know what I was talking about when I suggested it.”

“Archie’s alternated some pretty standard Halloween costumes in all the years I’ve known him,” Betty says. “Cowboy, ninja, Han Solo, that kind of thing.” 

“Well, this year he’s going to be my southern gentleman,” Veronica says, winking at her. 

Betty leans against a rack of princess gowns, eyebrows wiggling. “Because if you said you were madly in love with him, he’d know you were lying?” 

Veronica rolls her eyes, the slightest flush in her cheeks. “Of course you’re a Vivien Leigh fan.” She plucks up a couple dresses. “Anyway, _speaking_ of southern gentleman, what are you and Jughead planning on wearing?” 

“Probably our pyjamas,” Betty says. “He wants to watch _Nosferatu._ ”

“Betty!” Veronica pouts. “You know I hate it when you skip school dances to act like an old married couple.” 

“No one’s acting married,” Betty says - it’s her turn to blush. “But you know how people are at Riverdale - Jug and I can’t just waltz in there. At least one drunk jock will try and cause a scene. And it’s his birthday this weekend, and after last year - ”

“The dance is _next_ weekend.” Veronica bats her lashes at Betty. “I really want you to go as Sandy and Danny.” 

“Oh, god, Veronica.” Betty narrows her eyes. “Did you hatch this plan with Kevin?”

“Of course not,” Veronica says, though her grin makes it clear that, yes, she did. 

Betty looks skyward. “Okay, I will make you a deal. I’ll talk to Jug about it if, and _only if_ , you drop this whole _Grease_ thing.” 

Veronica sighs. “Deal,” she says, holding out her pinky finger. 

Betty hooks her own finger against Veronica’s, a promise sealed. “Okay.” 

Their fingers still linked, Veronica says, in a rush, “Can I just say one quick thing though? About the super cute outfit you could wear?” 

“ _No_ ,” Betty laughs, and uses their joined pinkies to pull Veronica toward the dressing rooms. 

 

 

For Jughead’s birthday, Betty does not throw a party. She does bake him a cake, a double-chocolate one topped with oreos, and cooks him dinner, and get a bottle of red wine via Veronica. She can’t afford to buy him a gift, so she implements a DIY idea she finds online, buys a cheap pack of playing cards and writes on each one until she has a deck of fifty-two reasons why she loves him. 

Betty serves him the meal she’d laboured over, puts candles on his cake, pours him glasses of wine, and gives him the cards with her teeth anchored nervously in her bottom lip. He reads them slowly, placing each one down on the tabletop carefully when he’s done. 

Jughead looks at her with eyes full of warmth, and reaches for her hands. “This was my favourite birthday,” he tells her, offering her that smile of his that she loves the best, the one with the hint of vulnerability inside of it. 

She believes him, or at least she wants to, but it doesn’t quite _feel_ like a birthday and Betty gets that terrible, nagging feeling that occurs when it seems she’s disappointed someone. “Are you happy?” she whispers. 

He leans in to kiss her in lieu of a response, a kiss with so much behind it that it gives her butterflies. “Come to bed,” he says, and then stands up and blows out the single candle burning on the kitchen table. 

On the bed that was his and is slowly becoming theirs, where they are always a bit of a tight fit, Betty pulls off Jughead’s shirt and kisses his chest and dips her head to go lower, but the firm grasp of his hand on her chin stops her, and before she knows it he’s flipped them over, pinning her to the mattress so quickly it leaves her breathless. 

He helps her out of her nicest dress, worn for the occasion, and her fanciest bra, also worn for the occasion, and tugs her underwear off her hips and down her legs. In the next instant, his mouth is on her, and she’s gasping, toes curling, and grabbing at his hair. 

“Jug,” she says, trying to sound serious but only sounding needy, wanting, “it’s _your_ birthday.” 

“Mm.” He kisses the inside of her thigh. “So I get to do what I want.” 

Jughead’s mouth, his tongue - Betty always thinks of it like poetry, despite how flowery and silly that sounds. There is something artful about the way he can make her come apart, lose control, find release. 

She cants her hips up a bit to meet his mouth, pulls a pillow over her face so the neighbours don’t hear her moan. 

 

 

Blissful and sleepy after her orgasms, she lets her eyelids drift close, slips her chilly feet between Jughead’s thighs to warm them, and murmurs, “Favourite birthday, for real?”

He’s as satisfied as she is, all tousled hair and heavy lids, a sight that could almost make her blush. “For real, baby,” he murmurs back. 

She moves her feet and turns over so that he can wrap his body around hers. “Hey, Juggie?” 

“Yeah?” he asks, still sounding sleepy as he nuzzles her neck. 

“There’s a dance, next weekend. At Riverdale.” 

His breath against her earlobe makes her shiver. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah. Veronica’s… been bugging me about it. She wants me to go.” 

“You should,” he says. “If you want to.”

“V’s going with Archie,” Betty tells him, stifling a yawn. “So who would be my date?” 

“Ah,” he says, a smile in his voice. “You’re taking advantage of the post-coital moment.” 

She nudges him. “It might be fun, you know.” 

“Betty,” he sighs. “You know it’s a bad idea. You could go with Veronica, that would be fine, but the minute I show up… Everyone you go to school with, their parents are convinced the Serpents are damaging the town, ruining kids’ lives. I can’t show up there, it’s a fight waiting to happen.” 

She sighs, too, and whispers, “I know.” 

“I’m sorry,” Jughead says. “We’re still in high school, and it shouldn’t be so complicated, but… ”

“But it is.” She shifts closer to him, her back against his chest. “It’s okay. It’s really not a big thing. Veronica was just so insistent about it, and I promised her I’d talk to you. And now I have.” 

“Betts,” he murmurs. He doesn’t believe her. 

An idea occurs to her, and she rolls onto her back so she can look at him. “Hey, does Southside have a dance?” 

“Uh… I think so,” Jughead says slowly. “But actually, about next weekend, I was going to ask you if you wanted to… go to a thing with me.”

“A thing?”

“A… party, I guess.”

“With?” Betty asks, though she already knows the answer. 

“Some people from school - Ricky, Frank, Mo. Some other people.” 

She licks her lips. “Some other Serpents.” 

“Yeah.” Jughead’s eyes flick over her face. “We don’t have to go.” 

“No,” she says. “No. We should, right?” He hasn’t exactly been too much of a social butterfly. 

With a slow nod, he agrees, “It wouldn’t be a bad idea.” 

“Okay,” she says softly. “Then we’ll go.” 

He kisses her, and it seems like thirty seconds later he’s asleep, knocked out by sex as usual - Veronica says it’s a guy thing. She’s tired, too, but she lays awake for a little while longer, her eyes on the ceiling, following the slow drift of her thoughts. 

 

 

She goes to Veronica’s to borrow a short black skirt; she needs something a little more biker chick, a little less Nancy Drew. 

“God, your legs,” Veronica sighs once Betty’s shimmied into it. “I can’t believe you used to keep those hidden.” She tilts her head as she studies Betty. “I have the perfect boots to go with that. I wish our feet were the same size.” 

“It’s okay,” Betty says, tucking her white V-neck tee into the waist of the skirt. “I’ll just wear flats.” 

“You look very James Dean.”

Betty smiles, sitting down in front of Veronica’s vanity. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” 

“It is,” Veronica says, leaning in over Betty’s shoulder to check her carefully curled hair. She’s still in her robe, not yet costumed for the dance. 

“You’re going to look amazing tonight,” Betty tells her. 

“Thank you.” Veronica backs up and sits on the foot of her bed, silent for a moment while Betty carefully draws on winged eyeliner. “I wish you were coming.” 

Betty meets her eyes in the mirror and offers her an apologetic smile. “I know.” 

“If you change your mind, I can make Archie promise not to sing to you.”

“Stop,” Betty laughs. She caps her eyeliner and turns around. “Maybe tonight… he’ll sing to you.” She scrutinizes Veronica’s face. “Any new developments there?” 

Veronica looks at her feet. “I’m not sure.”

“Why not?” Betty asks softly. “You like him, don’t you? You want to try again.” 

“Maybe. I don’t know,” Veronica sighs. “Maybe.” 

Betty bites her lip for a moment and then says, carefully, “This is going to sound really conceited, and I don’t mean for it to, but… you know he’s, like… over me, right? A while ago he said something to me about you thinking maybe he wasn’t, but he is.” 

Veronica smiles. “Betty, just because you’ve moved way past Archie Andrews, it doesn’t mean he’s automatically done the same.” 

“It’s been _months_. He was with you, V. Before all that stuff with me, he was with you.” 

“And we broke up,” Veronica points out. “Not even that - we’d never even officially decided we were together. We just… stopped.” 

“But there were… other circumstances. Beyond your control.” 

“B, I love you for caring,” Veronica says. “And wanting me to happy. But, contrary to how I’ve often done things in the past, I think… I just need to move slow with this one.” She smiles warmly at Betty, but there’s just a little sadness in her eyes. “You’re heartbreakers, you Riverdale kids.” 

Betty smiles back, reaching over to squeeze Veronica’s knee quickly. “There’s a theory that there’s something in the water.” 

“Maybe your mom should investigate,” Veronica quips, and then goes pale. “Oh, Betty, I’m sorry - ”

“It’s okay,” Betty cuts her off. “It’s okay. Don’t worry.” 

Veronica sighs, standing up. “Come here,” she says, pulling Betty up too and wrapping her in a hug. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” Betty repeats, her voice upbeat. 

Veronica lets her pretend she does not cry, leaving a damp patch on the shoulder of the dark-haired girl’s silk robe. She sits Betty down on the vanity chair, cleans her face efficiently with a makeup wipe and reapplies her eyeliner and mascara as if nothing had happened at all. 

 

 

The party at Frank’s isn’t all that different from the parties Betty has attended previously: there is lots of beer, the air is a little sticky, the music is loud and indistinct. It is different in that at least half of the people there are wearing leather jackets with snakes emblazoned on the back, and in the fact that some members of the crowd are clearly older, in their twenties. 

Jughead’s friends greet him with enthusiasm, shoving a beer into his hands. He introduces her and she shakes their hands, trying to remember their names. One of them, Mo, grins widely at her and says, “Man, what are you doing with an idiot like Jones?” 

She shrugs, feeling shy. “I can’t resist a beanie.”

“Is that all it is? Because I could get a beanie.”

“Shut up, Mo, you’re drunk,” Jughead says, but there’s some fondness in his voice - it’s like the way he’d speak to Archie. His hand rests at the small of her back. “You want to get a drink?” 

“Okay.” 

He navigates the crowd and finds two girls close to their age, one wearing a Serpents jacket, the other in jeans and a plaid shirt tied in the front to reveal her belly button. “You guys the keepers of the good drinks?”

“Depends who’s asking,” the one in the jacket says with a smile. 

“This is Betty,” he says, tipping his head toward her. “Betty, Sam and Nora.” 

“Betty… Cooper, right?” asks Nora, her interest piqued. “You wrote that piece about the Serpents last year. The witch hunt.” 

“Um - yes,” Betty says, a little surprised. “Yeah, I did.” 

Nora smiles at her. “That was cool.”

She can feel herself flushing. “It was just the truth.” 

Nora exchanges a look with Sam. “Come on, Betty. We’ll get you a drink that’s not warm, shitty beer.” To Jughead, she says, “You can go play with the boys.” 

He steps forward a little and puts his hand on Betty’s elbow, like he’s reluctant to leave her, and Sam chortles and rolls her eyes. 

“Damn, relax, Jones. We won’t let anything happen to her.”

Jughead looks into her face for a moment and Betty gives him a small nod. “I have my phone,” he says, and then, to her surprise, plants a kiss on her lips before slipping back into the crowd. 

Nora hooks her arm through Betty’s like Veronica so often does. “So, listen, I don’t mean this offensively, I really don’t, please don’t think I’m a bitch, but do you knit? Becuase you kind of looks like someone who knits.” 

A little laugh escapes out of her mouth. “No, I don’t knit.”

Smiling at her again, Nora says, “Thank god.” 

 

 

When Jughead comes to find her again, she’s sitting on the floor in a hallway with Nora and Sam and a couple other girls, slowly drinking a rum and Coke. It’s been okay, even better than she thought it would be - they’ve talked about music and TV shows and their after-school jobs. They’ve even talked about Jughead a bit, Betty evasively answering their curious questions. 

“Ready to go?” he asks, and she nods, stretching her hands up so he can pull her to her feet. 

“Bring her back, Jughead,” Nora says, tipsy now. “We haven’t gotten enough dirt about you out of her yet.”

“And you never will,” Jughead says. 

“It was nice to meet you,” Betty tells them, and then lets Jughead guide her out of the house. 

The night air is cool and refreshing; she inhales deeply, filling her lungs. Jughead slips out of his leather jacket and holds it out; Betty slides her arms into the sleeves, shrugging it on. 

“Was tonight okay?” he asks her. 

“Yeah,” she says. “It was pretty good. They’re nice.” 

“I’m sorry I disappeared for so long.”

“It’s okay,” she says, and then remembers that she’s trying to be someone different from the girl who always said everything was okay. “I mean - it wasn’t bad, but I missed you.” She looks over at him. “Where’d you go?”

“I had to talk to someone. An old friend of my dad’s.” 

“About what?” He is silent, which makes her nervous, so she prods, “Juggie?”

He rubs his face tiredly. “Nothing; it was stupid.”

Betty slows to a stop. “Tell me.”

Jughead sighs and clenches his jaw. “Betts, it’s really not important.”

“It looks important.”

“We don’t… do this,” he says quietly. “I don’t get you involved in the shittiness of all this.”

Her mouth goes dry. “What’s happening? What is it?”

He puts his hands on her shouders. “Do you trust me?”

“Do you trust _me_?” she asks him right back. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“I love you, Betty.” His eyes are begging her to let it go. “I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you.”

“What?” she says. “What could happen to me?”

He lifts his hands to her cheeks. “Baby, please just trust me.”

It isn’t fair. She knows it, and so does he - it’s like when she kisses him in the middle of an argument. Soft eyes and _baby_ , that’s his trump card. 

“Jug…” She sighs. 

“Come on.” He touches his cold lips to her forehead and nudges her so that she’ll start walking again. “Let’s go home before you freeze.”

 

 

Betty wakes in the morning to the sound of rustling. She rolls over, her eyes aching with the desire for more sleep, and sees Jughead tugging on his clothes. 

“Juggie?” she asks hoarsely. 

Startled, he turns to her. “Hey.” He steps closer to the bed and tucks the blankets up around her. “Go back to sleep, it’s early.”

“Where are you going?” 

“I’m going to visit my dad.” 

“Oh.” She sits upright, pushing the covers aside. “I can probably be ready in - ”

“Hey, no.” Jughead puts a hand on her shoulder to stop her. “Go back to sleep. I’ll go by myself.”

“Are you sure?” He’s only visited FP four times before, but she’s always gone with him to provide support, though she only went into the room with him the first time. 

He gives a lock of her hair a gentle tug. “Yeah, I’ll survive. You sleep. You’ve got the late shift at Pop’s.” 

“Okay,” she says hesitantly. She’s still a little thrown, but she tilts her chin up automatically to receive the kiss he gives her. “Drive safe… ”

“Always do, Betts.” 

A moment later, the trailer door slams closed and she hears the turn of his key in the lock. Betty sits in the bed, still half under the blankets, with an uncomfortable feeling in her throat. 

Her nails find the old, familiar grooves in her palms. She digs them in, just for a second, just for the sting of relief that action provides. Slowly, with effort, she uncurls her fingers again, and shoves one hand under her pillow as she tries to fall back asleep. 

 

 

tbc.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recommended listening for this chapter is "Nothing's Gonna Hurt You Baby" by Cigarettes After Sex, for reasons which will become clear as you read. (This song played during last week's episode of The Handmaid's Tale and gave me all the feels.)

With the arrival of winter, Betty becomes a girl of many layers. Trying to save on power bills, she and Jughead keep the trailer _just_ warm enough to keep the pipes from freezing, and not a degree more. She wears leggings under her jeans, thick sweaters over her shirts, and men’s thermal socks. She gives Hot Dog’s owner a permanent invitation for the dog to sleep over - she sleeps best at night with a snoring, warm pile of fur at the foot of the bed. 

She feels melancholy, and she tells herself that it’s because of the changing seasons, the constant snowfall and the sharp winds, the way dusk arrives earlier and earlier. She tells herself that it has nothing to do with the fact that when she musters the courage to get out of bed in the morning, it feels like she’s stepping into a freezer. She tells herself it has nothing to do with last Wednesday, when Jughead hadn’t texted her to say he’d be late, and she’d made him a dinner that went cold in record time, and when he’d finally arrived, after two in the morning, she was so chilly and so tired that she accepted his apologies in spite of herself. She tells herself it’s not because Christmas is just around the corner, and there’s a part of it, the lights and the carols and the gift bows, that makes something sting in her chest, something almost like homesickness. 

 

 

In the Cooper household, Christmastime was always Betty’s favourite time, for all the typical reasons like the smell of pies baking, the ornaments glittering on the tree, and watching classic holiday movies with her sister, but also because it was the time of year when her family, always strung so tight in an effort to achieve a perfect level of normalcy, was able to hit the bars her mother was always raising with a certain kind of ease. 

It was easy to achieve the perfect Christmas card photo when your daughters were both blonde and slender with teeth impeccably straightened by Riverdale’s only orthodontist. It was easy, in a family that didn’t struggle financially, to make faces light up on Christmas morning. With an absurdly large collection of ornaments, it was easy to decorate the tree, placed in front of the living room window, so well that it was the envy of the neighbourhood. When her daughters sang in church on Christmas Eve with pretty voices, how could Alice not be happy when everyone sighed and praised the Cooper girls and forgot about the family’s frequent absences in the pews during the rest of the year? With three women in his life who made perfectly baked, intricately decorated sugar cookies, how could Hal not be the envy of all of the town's other businessmen? And under a barrage of smiles and praise and warmth, how could Polly and Betty not beam and preen at the fact that they were, without a hitch, meeting their parents’ expectations? 

For months, Betty has purposefully not thought about her family. She’s ordered herself not to miss them. But with _I’ll Be Home for Christmas_ playing on the radio at Pop’s once every two hours or so, not even tight fists, a busy shift, or a History project completed with aggressive perfection can keep her mind from drifting to memories. 

 

 

After she’s delivered a slew of late night snacks to her classmates - some high and hungry, some on flirty first dates, some lost in laughter with their friends - she returns to the counter and sets a double-chocolate milkshake in front of Veronica, who is sitting on one of the stools. 

“Extra sprinkles for my favourite girl,” Betty says. 

Veronica grins, though her smile doesn’t quite light up her eyes. “You’re the best, B.” 

Betty glances around to confirm that none of her tables need anything, and then rests her elbows on the countertop. “You look tired.”

One of Veronica’s perfect eyebrows arches upward. “You’re one to talk.” 

“Hey.” Betty frowns a little. 

“You do,” Veronica says. “You look exhausted, and you have for weeks. I know I’m under strict orders not to worry about you, but - ”

“But nothing,” Betty cuts in. “You’re deflecting. I’ve seen you frowning at your phone for the past fifteen minutes.” 

“Who’s deflecting now?”

“I asked you first,” Betty says. “V, what’s wrong?” 

Veronica sighs. “We’re spending Christmas with Daddy in New York again.” 

Betty makes a sympathetic face. “And you don’t want to go.” 

“My parents just get so Stepford around each other,” Veronica says. “It’s like they want to pretend so badly that the last year didn’t happen that they’ve lost track of what our family _actually_ used to be like, and it’s like… it’s like we’ve become some parody of ourselves.” 

Betty nods slowly; she sort of knows what that’s like. She reaches over and takes Veronica’s hand, giving her fingers a squeeze. “I’ll miss you.” 

“I’ll miss you, too. _But_ ,” Veronica adds, drawing her spine up and losing her dejected slouch, “this is actually good news for you.” 

“How?” Betty asks, eyebrows knitting together. 

Veronica puts both her hands around one of Betty’s. “We’ll be gone for two weeks. I think you and Jughead should stay at the Pembrooke.”

Betty shakes her head immediately. “V, we couldn’t - ”

“You could,” Veronica insists. “And you should. There’s a fireplace, a stocked fridge, a rainfall shower, pillow-top mattresses, and we’re footing the heating bill. You can consider it your gift.” When Betty opens her mouth to protest again, she says, “Just think about it. Please?” 

“Okay,” Betty says. “I’ll… talk to Jug about it, I guess.” 

“I know you’re trying to be an independent woman a la Destiny’s Child. And you’re holding it all together way better than I ever would. But taking this won’t change that, B. Give yourself a couple weeks to be warm and sleep in and relax.” 

“I’ll talk to Jug,” Betty repeats, nodding. “Thank you.” 

Veronica nods. “Okay, so that’s my misery. Let’s talk about the bags under _your_ eyes.” 

“Oh,” Betty says, straightening up. “I think table three wants their cheque… Sorry, V, we’ll have to talk later.” 

“Oh my god, you are the _worst_ liar,” Veronica huffs. Betty flashes her a quick _who, me?_ smile over her shoulder before she goes and Veronica gives her a half-exasperated smile in return. 

 

 

Betty runs water over her hands, not wincing once as it stings on indentations on her palms, which she’s deepened unconsciously over the past few days. Jughead leans in the doorway of the trailer’s small bathroom, watching her. 

“What is it?” he asks her. 

“I don’t know.” The water on her hands is running clear now, no longer light pink. “School and stuff.” 

“Betts.” 

“I don’t _know_ , Jug,” she says with a hint of sharpness in her voice. “Don’t you think that if I knew, I’d stop?” 

He steps toward her and puts a hand on her back. She wants him to snap back at her, but he doesn’t - he just waits. 

Finally, quietly, she says, “It’s been happening for a week and you haven’t noticed. So let’s not pretend I’m the only one who’s distracted.” 

Jughead sighs and kisses her temple. “I’m sorry.” 

She shrugs, still looking at her palms. “It’s not your job to take care of me.” 

“Stop,” he says, tucking fingers under her chin and forcing her to look at him. “Of course it is. You take care of me. I’d probably have scurvy if you didn’t force some broccoli on me every once in a while.” 

Betty can’t put most of her feelings into words, but she does manage to say, “I’m cold.” Her breath catches and her eyes begin to well. “I’m always, always cold.” 

“Shh,” he murmurs, pulling her into a hug. He cups the back of her head with his hand, holding her close. “I’m sorry.” 

“No,” she mumbles against his shirt. He isn’t to blame for the cuts on her hands, for the extent to which they’re struggling financially, for her heartache. The decisions she’s made have been hers and hers alone. 

“I love you,” Jughead tells her quietly, his mouth against her ear. “I love you so much.” 

Betty sniffles and pulls back in his hold to look at him. “Veronica said we can stay at her place. During Christmas break, while they’re away.” 

She can see, in his face, his immediate opposition to the idea, followed closely by a searching look of his own as he examines _her_ face, her pale cheeks and her tears. He releases a very quiet sigh and says, “Okay.” 

 

 

Cheryl takes Betty to the mall to shop for gifts for Lizzie and Jason. They’re both on reduced budgets, though Betty’s purse strings are significantly tighter. Nonetheless, she manages to find some adorable pyjamas and a wooden puzzle with big, sturdy pieces for their baby hands. 

She trails after Cheryl without complaint. The mall is warm, and bright, and the familiarity of Christmas shopping is comforting. When Cheryl is finally satisfied, she leads the way to Starbucks and buys Betty a frothy peppermint latte. 

In the bustling cafe, Cheryl says, “Polly misses you, you know.” 

Betty licks a bit of whipped cream off her top lip. “I miss her, too. Like crazy.” 

Cheryl sweeps a hand over her head in her signature River Vixen hair flip. “Listen,” she says, a word that once might have filled Betty with some dread, coming from Cheryl Blossom, but now only makes her curious. “I got into Yale. Early acceptance.” 

“Wow.” Betty sets her coffee cup down. “Congratulations.” 

“Thank you,” Cheryl says, flashing her prom-queen smile. She rubs at the lipstick stain on the rim of her own cup. “I’m going to ask Polly to move with me. To New Haven.” 

Betty’s vision tunnels for a split second. “Oh,” she says softly. 

“I thought you might be upset. But it’s really for the best, isn’t it? Polly can’t keep living with your parents. They’re nearly as crazy as mine.” 

“Well, you know, Blossom blood,” Betty murmurs. 

“She needs a fresh start. Don’t you want Polly to have what you have? Don’t you want the twins to have a good life?”

“Of course I do, Cheryl.” 

“There’s no chance Polly will leave this incestuous little town if she knows you want her to stay.” Cheryl meets Betty’s eyes. “You have to give her permission. Your blessing.” She waits just a beat for Betty to consider it, then asks, “Can I tell her that she has it?” 

Betty has lost all interest in her latte, and Bing Crosby’s voice over the Starbucks speakers is pounding at her temples. She licks her lips and takes a deep breath, trying to get rid of the panicky tightness just beneath her heart. She says, “Yes.”

 

 

“Hey, sleeping beauty.”

Betty squints, groggily trying to locate the source of the voice that’s speaking to her. “Jug?” she murmurs. She pushes herself up into a sitting position and groans, her fingers kneading into the cramped muscles of her neck. She’d fallen asleep on the couch, face on top of her Biology textbook, her pencil dropped on the floor. 

“What time is it?” she asks, struggling to will herself awake. 

“Just after midnight.” He’s crouched in front of her, smiling. 

She frowns. “Did you just get home?” 

He shakes his head and asks, “Will you come somewhere with me?” 

Betty blinks. “Now?” 

“Yeah. It’s snowing.”

“What does that - ”

He interrupts her with a kiss and then pulls her to her feet. “Come on, put on your coat.” 

Baffled, Betty puts her winter coat on over her pyjamas, her hat on over her tangled hair, and slides her mittens onto her hands. She follows Jughead outside, where it is, as he said, snowing very softly, the world hushed under its blanket. 

“C’mon,” he says again, and opens the passenger door of the truck for her. 

They don’t speak during the drive. The slow drift of snowflakes is so peaceful that it feels wrong to break the magic. 

Jughead reaches over and squeezes her knee. She’s wearing flannel PJ pants with the penguins from _Happy Feet_ dancing on them, and the sight of his fingers against them makes her smile. She covers his hand with her own and looks out the window. 

They finally come to a stop in the woods near the river. Jughead hops out of the truck immediately, and Betty follows more slowly, confused. By the time she’s straightened up from tucking her pyjamas securely into her boots, he’s retrieved an axe from the the back of the truck. 

“Um, Jug?” she says. “All those times you’ve referred to me as a Hitchcock blonde - ”

He rolls his eyes affectionately and then tells her, “We’re getting a Christmas tree.” 

She stares at him for a beat. “What?” 

“A Charlie Brown style one,” he amends. “It’s not like we have much space.” 

Betty looks at him for another moment, and then she feels herself break into a smile, a cheek-splitting grin. “We’re getting a _Christmas tree_?” 

He nods and smiles back at her. “O Tannenbaum.” 

She laughs and throws her arms around his neck. He drops the axe, says, “Whoa, Betty, sharp objects here,” and she clings to him tightly for a moment and whispers, “Juggie, thank you.” 

“I love you, Betty Cooper,” he says, and she can feel the warmth of those words in every one of her chilled bones.

 

 

There is only one week left of school, and Betty is feeling steadier. There is a small, sad, but lovingly decorated tree jammed into the corner of the trailer’s living room. The scars on her palms are beginning to heal again. At lunchtime, Veronica sings _Santa Baby_ and makes eyes at Archie, and the bashful look on Archie’s face makes Betty feel hopeful for them. She goes to Kevin’s house to make cookies. At the diner, she gets particularly good tips. 

She’s put together the last issue of the Blue & Gold for the year, so she’s arriving home earlier than Jughead most days. She takes the opportunity to get out the wrapping paper she ‘borrowed’ from the Kellers and locate the book she’d bought for Jughead a while ago and hidden away, Stephen King’s _On Writing_. 

She stashed it high up in the coat closet, since it’s the one they use less frequently, and Jughead is unlikely to begin to clean it out of his own volition. Now, she gets one of the chairs from the kitchen table to stand on and rummages around the top shelf, finding it jammed a little further back than she remembers putting it. It’s crammed between other things, so she has to yank to get it out, and when she does, an ugly brown duffel bag comes tumbling downward, whacking her on the shoulder and nearly throwing her off the chair. 

Betty rights herself, waits for her heart to stop pounding, and then gets off the chair. She picks up the duffel bag and finds that it’s surprisingly heavy, much heavier than a bag full of clothes. 

She opens it. There is never any question in her mind, never any thought that she shouldn’t. 

She opens it, and finds that it is full of guns. 

 

 

(After the disaster that was prom, back when Betty still lived at home and was the proud owner of two dozen pink sweaters, she took a cab to Jughead’s foster home and threw pebbles at his window. 

When he saw her he smiled and stuck his head out of the window. “What are you doing, Betts? You look like something out of a Molly Ringwald movie.” 

She stood there in the grass in her bare feet, one heeled shoe in each hand, and fresh tears fell out of her eyes. “I forgot my boom box,” she called up to him, her voice broken and hoarse from the crying she’d done back at the school. 

His smile faded and he ran a hand through his mussed-up hair. “What happened?” 

“Can you come down here?” 

“You can come to the door,” Jughead said, nodding toward it. “They’re out for the evening.” 

Filled with relief, she walked through the damp grass. Jughead opened the door for her and she stepped inside, her first time there. The house was small but well-kept, with a framed _Welcome Home_ sign in the entryway. 

“What’s going on?” Jughead asked softly as they went into the living room, sitting down on a plaid green sofa. “I can’t believe I’m about to continue the eighties movies clichés, here, but did something happen at prom?”

Betty nodded, breathing in deeply. She set her shoes on the floor and curled her legs up, pulling the skirt of her dress over them. “Yeah. Something happened at prom.” 

Jughead curled his hand around her neck gently, the comforting gesture of his that she loved the most, and rubbed his thumb over her collarbone. “Tell me,” he said softly. 

“Archie,” she began, and then stopped. 

Jughead’s mouth started to shift into the shape of a frown. “What did he do?” 

“It’s not - it’s not like - he didn’t call me names or anything. He wasn’t - he didn’t do anything… bad. Not really. I guess.” 

“Betty.” He leaned in, a wordless request for her to focus. “What happened?” 

She looked at him, his concerned face, and couldn’t resist touching fingertips to his lips, just for a second. “He sang me a song.” 

His concern morphed into confusion. “What?” 

She swallowed hard; it was too difficult to explain. “Can you get your laptop?” 

He went upstairs and came back with his computer, setting it down on the coffee table. Betty opened it, typed in his password (adorably, _jellyisabean_ ), went to YouTube, looked up the song, and let the video play. 

It was a very long five minutes and four seconds. Jughead watched the music video, and Betty watched Jughead. He looked puzzled, and then angry, and then annoyed. 

Hearing the song again made her cry, and she was runny-nosed, blinking frantically, when Jughead turned to her. His expression was resigned, but unsurprised. “So, Archie… wants to be with you.”

Through her tears, Betty told him, “He said he loves me.”

Something shuttered in his expression, and his eyes searched her face for what seemed like a long time. Softly, he asked, “And what did you say?”

Her breath caught around a sob. “I said I love _you_.” 

Again, he just looked at her. 

When Betty had managed to catch her breath a bit, he was _still_ looking at her, and, with a hint of impatience, she asked, “Why are you staring at me like that?” 

Jughead shook his head as if she’s snapped him out of something. “No reason, I - sorry.” He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I love you, too.” He pulled her into a hug and after a moment added, “Don’t cry, Betts. Do you want me to beat him up?”

She laughed wetly against his shoulder. “No.” Turning her face into his neck, she added, “I know it didn’t exactly… follow the bro code, what he did, but… ”

“Hey,” he said, voice soft and easy. “It’s your call.” 

They stayed like that for several minutes, just hugging. Betty breathed him in, feeling herself calm down slowly, feeling her body unwind. Jughead rubbed the back of her neck lightly. 

And then he let go of her, closed the browser tab with the Taylor Swift video in it, and put on a playlist instead. He stood, offered her his hand, and off her inquiring look, said, “It’s prom night. Let’s dance.” 

Betty laughed and let him pull her to her feet. “I didn’t know you danced, Jughead Jones,” she said softly. 

He lifted her arms and put them around his neck, and then put his hands on her hips. “I’m an enigma, Betty Cooper,” he said, and she kissed him. 

The song was soft and pretty, a quiet voice singing, “Whispered something in your ear… it was a perverted thing to say. But I said it anyway, made you smile and look away.” 

The living room was dimly lit, only one lamp on, and in its shadows Betty laid her head on Jughead’s shoulder. Their dancing was nothing but a slow sway and she closed her eyes, her bare toes brushing against his sock feet. 

From his computer’s speakers, the quiet voice continued: “Nothing’s gonna hurt you, baby. As long as you’re with me, you’ll be just fine…” 

She didn’t think she had any tears left, but she did have just one, which slid out of her eye and over the bridge of her nose, eventually creating a spot of wetness between her cheek and Jughead’s shirt, and she knew, with a surety she could never explain, that this was his song for her.) 

 

 

When Betty runs out of the trailer, the door slamming behind her, she isn’t thinking. It takes several minutes of running, to the point where her lungs are just beginning to burn, for her to focus again, to rein in her fight-or-flight instinct and return to rationality. 

She knows that she should go to the Pembrooke. Veronica will hug her when she cries, will make her hot chocolate and spike it with liqueur, will wrap Betty up in big fluffy blankets and promise her that it’ll all be okay. 

She knows that’s where she should go, but her body isn’t listening to her brain, and she runs and runs and runs, runs to the place where she feels safest, feels most like herself, feels at home. 

 

 

Fred opens the door, takes one look at Betty, who is gasping for air and snotty-nosed and red-cheeked, and steps back and calls, “Archie…” 

Archie jogs down the stairs in his familiar way, feet heavy on the steps, says, “Yeah?” and then sees her. “Betty,” he says softly, a crease appearing between his brows. 

She chokes on air. “Arch,” she says, her voice only a whisper, “I think I really fucked up.” 

 

tbc.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't going to post this until tomorrow, but you guys are so wonderful that it felt a little cruel to just leave you with that cliffhanger. I appreciate your kudos so much, and I absolutely love reading your comments; thank you. Also: if you're not logged into an account when you comment, please know that I do still reply!

Betty sleeps in Archie’s bed, curled up in a ball beneath his plaid sheets, and wakes with a post-crying-jag headache. For a moment, she’s disoriented, and then she remembers: the guns. A bag full of guns. 

She gropes for her phone to check the time and finally finds it amidst the sheets. It’s almost nine o’clock and her battery is low. 

The first notification on her phone is a text from Veronica, just a single heart. 

The second, third, and fourth are texts from Jughead: _Betty, please talk to me. Please just call me_ from about twelve hours ago, and _it’s been betty and archie since we were 4 and maybe that’s the best thing_ followed immediately by _im sorry_ at half past three in the morning. 

She stares at her phone, feeling a prickle of something angry in her throat, and throws back the blankets, charging downstairs in the t-shirt and boxers she’d borrowed from Archie last night. 

He’s sleeping on the couch and she stands right over him, whacks him with a throw pillow. “What did you tell him?”

“Wha…” Archie flings an arm over his eyes. “What’s going on?” he mumbles, still half asleep. 

“Wake up,” Betty says impatiently. “What did you say to Jughead?” 

He drops his arm and squints at her for a minute. “Oh, I - I told him you were here. He was freaking out - like _really_ freaking out, saying some crazy stuff. I just told him you were here and you were safe. Why?” 

“Because - ” Betty looks away from him, unsure how to articulate her feelings, which are a cocktail of anger and sadness and frustration. “What do you mean, he was saying crazy stuff?” 

Archie sits up, resigning himself to the fact that the time for sleep has come to an end. “He was talking like he thought you’d been kidnapped, or something.” 

“ _What?_ ”

“I don’t know. Like I said, he was freaking out. I told him you were okay, you were just… upset. About… well, you know.” 

“Yeah, about the giant bag of weapons,” Betty breathes, and then sits down on the couch by Archie’s feet. She presses her face into her hands. 

He touches her back tentatively. “Maybe we should let him explain.” 

“Archie,” she sighs, lifting her head. “Of all the reasons you can think of that a seventeen-year-old in a biker gang would have a bag of guns in his closet, are any of them _good_?” 

He glances away. “Not really, I guess.” 

“What if they’re his,” Betty says, “I mean, what if he _uses_ them? Or what if this is what the Serpents really do, what if it’s not trafficking drugs but guns? What if - what if I’m… an _accessory_ , to whatever they’re doing? Whatever _Jug_ is doing?” 

“You have to calm down,” Archie says softly. 

“How?” she asks. “ _How?_ ” Betty doesn’t want to cry but she does, big tears rolling down her cheeks and sobs in her chest. “I _moved in_ with him. I picked him, us, over my family, my mother _hates_ me, I hardly get to see my sister, I - ” She sucks in some air. “I feel like I’m drowning sometimes and I - and he’s - ”

“Hey,” Archie says, voice still soft. “Hey, it’s okay.” He shifts closer to her and puts his arm around her. “Betty, it’s okay.” With a sigh, he says, “I hate when you cry.” 

She leans her head against his shoulder and closes her eyes. “It’s not okay. I can’t - even if he’s not shooting those guns, Arch, he’s giving them to someone who will. How am I supposed to be okay with that?”

Archie rubs her arm. “I don’t know,” he tells her. “I guess… you’re not, but… we’ll figure it out. Somehow, we will.” 

“It’s not what I signed up for,” she says on a shaky breath. “Or maybe it is, and I was too stupid to realize it.” 

“Shh, you’re not stupid,” Archie says firmly. “And Jughead’s not a criminal.” His words are sure but she can see the doubt flicker over his face, the darkness, the fear with a hint of anger mixed in.

She straightens, pulling away from him, and brushes her fingers under her eyes. “Maybe… he’s his father’s son,” she says with a helpless shrug. “Maybe I’m my mother’s daughter.” She takes another shuddering breath. “Maybe time is just a fucking flat circle.” 

“Don’t say that,” Archie says, but his eyes are full of almost as much sadness as she feels. 

 

 

She thinks about watching the footage of Jason Blossom’s death. 

She thinks about the levels of its horror: father murdering son, but also the simplicity of a gun, of a bullet, the _ease_ of ending a life. 

She thinks about Fred Andrews, bleeding on the floor of Pop’s, life seeping out of a bullet hole. She thinks of Archie, afterward, his sorrow and his confusion. 

She thinks of Jughead, his smile at her in the woods, the warmth of his body next to hers in bed at night, the kindness of his touch on her damaged hands, her damaged heart, and then she thinks of the leather jacket he wears so frequently now, the late nights and the somber expressions, the line of tension running through his shoulders. 

Back in Archie’s bed, allegedly taking a nap, she pulls the blankets over her head and cries. 

 

 

The bedroom door opens with a slight creak, making the same sound when it closes again. Heels clack against the floor, and then the mattress dips. 

“Hey, sweetie,” Veronica says softly. 

Betty peeks out from under the blankets. “Hi.” 

“Is this a one-person party or can I join?”

Wordlessly, Betty shifts over in the bed until she’s against the wall. Veronica toes off her shoes and crawls in next to her, slipping under the blankets. 

“I’m sorry, B,” she says. “This sucks.” 

Miserably, Betty agrees: “Yeah.” 

“I know how hard it can be,” Veronica says quietly. “To love someone who does… things. Things that aren’t good.” 

“It’s different,” Betty sniffles. “Even if we ignore the fact that you still don’t really know the details of your father’s illegal dealings, it’s not like you chose to be his daughter. It happened to you.” She wipes under her eyes with the corner of the blanket. “This didn’t happen to me. I picked it.” She draws in a breath. “I picked him.” 

“I know,” Veronica whispers, dark eyes full of sympathy. 

“I don’t know what to do,” Betty confesses brokenly. “I don’t know if I can talk to him. I’m scared of asking him questions I don’t want the answers to. And I - am I homeless now? If - if Jughead’s selling guns or buying guns or whatever he’s doing with guns, does that mean we’re over? Can I - can I live with that? And if I can’t, am I homeless?” 

“Shh.” Veronica inches closer. “You are not homeless. You will never be homeless. You can always come stay with me and my mom. It’s an open offer. No expiry.” 

“It’s not your job - or your mom’s job - to clean up my mess.” 

“B, you cleaned up this whole damn town’s mess last year. If anyone’s entitled to a cleaning committee, it’s you.” 

Betty shakes her head. She can feel her hair getting increasingly unruly as it rubs against the pillow; she must be a sight. “I didn’t,” she says. “V - ” Her voice catches. “He put on that jacket right in front of me. It didn’t matter that I was there. It didn’t matter that just before - ”

“Come on, that’s not your fault.” 

“I only asked him once,” Betty tells her. “I only asked him once to take it off, to turn down their offer. Just that one time.” 

“You can’t blame yourself for this, Betty. You can’t blame yourself for falling for him, and you can’t blame yourself for not talking him out of joining a gang.” Veronica brushes Betty’s hair out of her face. “You can’t control everything, even if you wish you could.” 

“I love him so much,” Betty whispers. That feeling, which has always been like a balm, now feels like it’s tearing her up inside. 

“I know, honey,” Veronica says gently. “And if he’s making stupid decisions in spite of that, he’s a total idiot.” She slides an arm over Betty and gives her a half-hug. 

They stay that way for a while and Betty closes her eyes, concentrating on her breathing, on a pattern of inhales and exhales that she strives to stabilize. 

“You know,” Veronica says, her voice still soft but a little lighter, “if Archie walked in the door, he’d probably die. I bet this is his biggest fantasy.” 

Betty lets out a little wet laugh. “Stop.” 

“Just an observation,” Veronica says, smiling at her. 

“Is… your offer still on the table?” Betty asks. “To stay at the Pembrooke over break?” 

“Of course, but - should you really be alone? Over Christmas? And right now?” 

“I think alone,” Betty says softly, “is exactly what I need.” 

 

 

Archie drives her to the Pembrooke and walks her up to the apartment. She turns to him and looks at him expectantly, but he makes no move to go.

“Thanks for the escort,” she says, hoping he’ll get the hint.

“Yeah, of course,” he says. He doesn’t leave.

“Arch… you can go home now,” Betty says, smiling at him to make it clear she doesn’t mean it harshly. 

He licks his lips, as though he’s nervous. “Look, Betts…” He sighs. “I want you to promise me you’ll call me. Or text me. If you need anything. Or if you just want to talk. Or for any reason at all.”

“I will.” 

He looks unconvinced. “I don’t want you to… pull a Cheryl Blossom.” 

Betty sighs quietly. There is no point in trying to convince him that she’s not in a downward spiral - her face would tell him otherwise. “I’ll call you if I need you.”

Archie puts his hands on her upper arms and leans toward her, looking right into her eyes. “I love you,” he says seriously. “You’re my best friend. I need you.” 

She looks back at him with soft eyes, knowing that he means it. “I’m not going anywhere, Arch.” 

“Okay,” he says, blowing out his breath. He hugs her, and then he finally leaves. 

 

 

Betty spends five days eating expensive ice cream out of the Lodges’ freezer, watching whatever holiday movies are on TV, and feeling generally miserable. If she’s not feeling heartbroken, she’s feeling numbed by all the tears she’s cried and the emotional rollercoaster she seems to be riding on the daily. 

On Christmas Eve, Smithers calls up to say she has a visitor. 

“Who is it?” she asks. Archie or Kevin likely would have texted first. 

“Your father, miss,” he says. 

Betty opens the door to the Lodge apartment and finds her father standing on the other side. He looks tired, older than she remembers, and the sight of him yanks at her aching heart. 

“Daddy,” she says quietly. She gives herself a moment to see if she’s going to cry, but no tears come. 

“Hi, Betty,” he says, his voice just as soft. “May I come in?” 

She nods, stepping back from the doorway. 

They sit on the couch together, with a couple feet of space between them. Betty feels self-conscious and raw. She hasn’t washed her hair in three days, she’s wearing a pair of Veronica’s silk pyjamas, and she hasn’t seen her father in months. 

“Fred let it slip that you were here,” Hal says. 

Betty looks down into her lap. “You’ve always known where I was,” she points out. “You just didn’t want to see me.” 

“Elizabeth,” her father says, “Your mother is looking for your brother.” 

She looks up again. “The baby she put up for adoption?”

“Yes.” Hal studies the fireplace for a moment. “She’s… single-minded about it. You know how your mother is.”

Betty makes an unimpressed noise. “Yeah, I’m well aware.” 

Hal doesn’t comment on her sarcasm. “Alice is putting all her energy into finding a child I’ve never even met. And I’ve thought to myself… many times…” He looks her over, her wrinkled silk pyjamas and greasy hair. “I’ve thought: I have a daughter, who I held the moment she was born, whose ballet recitals I taped for years, who I taught everything I know about cars, and I know exactly where she is.” He swallows audibly. “She’s the child I should be bringing home.” 

The tears she’d been expecting spring to her eyes then, and not just because of what he’s said, but because of the truth she knows he isn’t saying. “Mom doesn’t even know you’re here, does she?”

“You’ve always reminded me so much of your mother,” he says quietly. “In all the good ways. You’re both so stubborn.” 

Betty’s tears slip down her cheeks. “So that’s a _no, Betty, I snuck out to see you_.” 

“Betty,” Hal says. “Honey. I want you to come home.” 

“Mom doesn’t want me,” she tells him. “Just like you didn’t want that baby, all those years ago. So I guess you’re at an impasse. Polly’s the only one you can agree on.” 

Her father is silent for a moment, and then he says, “What happened with that boy?”

She makes a small, strangled noise. “He has a _name_.” 

“Elizabeth,” Hal sighs. 

“I made a mistake,” she whispers, her voice tight in her throat. “But so did you. You backed Mom up without a single thought and - and the things you said to me - ” She looks right at him. “You called me a _whore_ , Dad. You threw me out of the house.” 

She sees a flash of regret on his face before he says, “Now, let’s not exaggerate, I didn’t - ”

“We have to live with them,” Betty says, interrupting him. “Our mistakes.” 

Hal is quiet after that, his eyes shiny. After a long silence, he asks, “Will you at least let me give you some money?” 

Betty shakes her head. 

 

 

Smithers calls again in the late afternoon. 

“If it’s my father, please don’t let him up,” Betty says tiredly. 

“It’s a young man,” Smithers says. “In a… unique hat.” There is mumbling in the background. “He says he knows you don’t want to see him, but he hopes you’ll reconsider.” 

She sighs; what’s one more terrible conversation today? “Send him up.” 

 

 

Jughead looks about as bad as she feels, pale-cheeked and sad-eyed, his shirt wrinkled and stained with coffee. He has her backpack in his hand. 

“I thought you might want some of your things,” he says, offering it to her. 

Betty takes it. “Thanks.” 

He shoves his hands in his pockets. She can’t read the expression on his face. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah.” She opens the door wider so he can walk in, and then closes it behind him. 

“Can I talk to you?” he asks. “Explain?” 

She sets the backpack down. “Come to the living room.” 

Jughead sits on the couch, so Betty takes a chair. For a minute, they stare at one another, and then he says, “Betty - Christ, Betts, I am so sorry. I know I fucked up. I know it’s bad. I just want you to know how sorry I am.” 

“I don’t doubt that you’re sorry,” she says quietly. “There are a lot of other things I have questions about.” 

He nods, leaning forward. “The Serpents have a chapter in Greendale. Well, not a chapter, exactly, but… close associates. My dad, he dealt with them a lot.” 

Betty just nods, prompting him to continue. 

“My dad’s been telling the truth. About the drugs. The Serpents deal, but nothing hard. Their real business is - well. You saw.” 

“How could you not tell me?” she blurts, her heart in her throat. “How could you not - ”

“Betty.” He leans forward even more, just barely sitting on the couch now. “Baby, you have to believe me when I say that I never meant to get involved with that crap. I only learned about it in September, and I kept out of it.”

“Until?”

Jughead sighs. “Until Halloween. Carl asked to see me, and he told me the guys in Greendale were pissed. FP has always delivered their… product. When his son didn’t pick up the torch, they got suspicious. And then they got angry, and started making threats.” He sinks back into the couch a bit. “I went to see my dad about it. He said he knew some of their guys in jail, that he’d try and work things out.” He brushes a hand over his eyes. “But… he couldn’t.” 

“So you did it,” Betty says. “You took the guns.”

His eyes are full of so many things. “You don’t understand, Betts. The threats they were making… ”

“What?” she asks, and when he doesn’t reply, “ _What_?”

“The threats they were making… they were threatening you.” 

She blinks. “What?”

“They said that they knew about my - quote - _pretty blonde piece of ass_.” He releases a shaky breath. “And believe me, that was the nicest thing they said.” 

Trying to process, she says, “They were probably just… posturing.” Even to her own ears, it sounds stupid. 

Jughead tugs something out of the inner pocket of his coat - he’s wearing the old, familiar, red-and-black plaid one that she likes. He reaches across the space between them and hands it to her. 

Betty takes it and gasps. It’s a picture of her, in her River Vixens uniform, walking down the street, totally unaware she’s being photographed. “Oh my god,” she whispers. 

“Gangs don’t posture,” Jughead says softly. “I didn’t have any other choice. I had to do it. They were - ” He waves a hand toward the photo she holds, which she drops to the floor. Jughead watches it fall and land face down, and then says, “When you moved in with me, you knew things would get hard. You were ready for that. You were never supposed to have to be ready for this.” 

“You should’ve told me,” she says. “Juggie, you should’ve _told_ me. We would have figured it out together.” 

He stands up and crosses the short distance between them, dropping down to kneel in front of her. He wraps both of his hands around hers. “This isn’t finding your sister, Betts. It’s not even Jason Blossom. It’s bigger, and it’s worse. It’s men - with guns - who are ready to hurt anyone who gets in their way. I’m sorry, I am _so_ sorry, but there was no figuring this out.” 

“You should’ve told me,” she insists. “I’m - I’m in it. Someone was following me, someone took that picture, you said someone threatened me - ”

“I wanted you to be safe.” 

“And totally uninformed!” She pulls her hands from his. “I’m not what they think I am, Jug, I’m not your _piece of ass_ \- ”

“Of _course_ you’re not - ”

“ - I’m not yours to _protect_ , I’m my own person!” She frowns at him and says, a bit more calmly, “You took all my agency out of this.” 

“You were never supposed to be in it, Betty.”

“But I _am_.” She waves a hand toward the discarded photograph. “I am.” 

He sighs heavily, bending his head for a moment to rest it against her knee. 

“Jughead, do you know what they do with them? With - with the _product_ you deliver?” 

He lifts his head. “No.” 

“But whatever it is,” she says. “It can’t be good.” 

“No,” he says again, even more quietly. “It can’t.” 

“And - and you’re okay with that? You’re okay with selling guns to men who steal and deal drugs and kidnap and god knows what else? Guns they aim at people? Guns they probably _shoot_ at people?” 

“Of course not,” he says, his voice low. 

“But you did it.” 

“Once.” Jughead takes off his beanie and runs his hand through his messy hair. “What you found - they asked me to do it again. I didn’t want to, but… I haven’t had a choice,” he says. “I can’t let you get hurt. And the Serpents keep a roof over our heads. They aren’t very accepting of protests when they want something for me.” 

Betty has a memory from months ago, of the two of them sitting in the trailer’s living room, arguing. She’d been nearly as sad as she is now, freshly kicked out of her home, newly determined to strike out on her own. 

She remembers Jughead’s serious eyes, fixed on her face, and remembers his words to Archie, who’d been a spectator to their dispute: _The Serpents will look out for us. If we ask. But anything they do for us comes with expectations, and once we’ve taken a couple days to calm down, we’ll realize how stupid it might be to chain ourselves to those expectations._

She sucks in a sharp breath. “Oh my god,” she whispers. 

“Betty,” Jughead says softly. He uncurls her fingers from their fists, where her nails are digging bloody lines into her skin. 

“We needed their help,” she breathes. “We needed their help and we took it. I took it. I said we should do it.” 

“Hey,” Jughead says, and when Betty looks away from him, feeling like the world is spinning, he grips her wrists. “ _Hey_. Betty.” Her eyes find his face again and he says, “Yeah. We needed them. I would’ve needed them, with or without you living with me.”

She shakes her head. “You had your foster family, you would’ve - ”

“Betts.” He takes her face in his hands. “Baby. Stop it. It’s not your fault.” 

She feels near-hysterical, breathing much too quickly. “You told me, when you first joined them, that you’d found out for sure that they weren’t responsible for shooting Fred Andrews. Was that a lie?”

“ _No_ ,” he says fiercely. “No. It’s the truth.” 

Tears gather in her eyes. “Juggie, you can’t sell guns. I - I can’t - it’s - I can’t know that you’re - ”

Her disjointed words are cut off when his mouth crashes against hers. She gasps and he takes the opportunity to slip his tongue into her mouth. He’s never kissed her quite like this before - it’s bruising, desperate, charged with feeling. 

Betty ends up on her back on the Lodges’ fancy carpet. Jughead rips off one of the buttons on Veronica’s fancy pyjama top in his hurried effort to get it open and her hands slide up under his sweater, fingers clawing, drawing blood. His breath is warm against her face, and when he groans into her neck her whole body seems to reverberate. 

“Look at me,” Jughead tells her, his hands braced on either side of her body. “Look at me.” 

She does, her eyes on his face, her breaths shallow in her chest, taking in how very beautiful he is, the shape of his mouth and the tilt of his eyebrows and the mess of his hair. “Jug,” she says very softly, and what she means is _I love you_. 

Afterward the apartment is silent save for the crackle of the fire and the sound of their heavy breathing. Jughead isn’t touching her but she can feel him, the warmth of his skin, just to her left. 

Betty feels like she’s splintering apart. She wonders if this was the last time. 

 

 

tbc.


	6. Chapter 6

Jughead spends the night. When they’re both dressed again, he says, “It’s Christmas,” and Betty doesn’t argue, because it is Christmas, and she’s mad at him, mad at herself, painfully sad, but she doesn’t think either of them deserve to wake up lonely the next morning. 

He sleeps on the couch and she sleeps in Veronica’s bed. She wakes up first, not long after dawn, and makes hot chocolate in the kitchen. She puts a generous amount of candy cane ice cream into each of the steaming mugs, creating frothy, Christmas-coloured concoctions. 

The smell of the cocoa wakes Jughead, as she knew it would, and he wanders into the room, accepting the mug Betty offers him with the barest touch of his lips to the corner of her mouth. 

They sit on stools at the large kitchen island, cups in front of them. Neither of them says _Merry Christmas_. 

“Did you sleep alright?” Betty asks softly, finally breaking the early morning silence. 

Jughead offers her a lopsided smile and, for a moment, she gets butterflies. “That couch is comfier than our bed.” He reaches over and tucks her hair behind her ear. His eyes are warm. “You’re perfect,” he says quietly, and when she frowns automatically, he adds, “I don’t mean that in an Alice Cooper way.” 

“What other way is there?” 

“This way,” he says, his fingers sinking briefly into her hair. “Your bedhead.” His fingers drag over her jawline, down her neck, and tug aside the neckline of her shirt, pressing gently into a bruise his mouth left on her collarbone the previous night. “This way…” His hand slips over her shoulder, slides down her arm, flips her hand so that her palm faces up. “This way.” He brings her hand to his mouth and kisses her scars. When he lays her hand gently back on her lap, his fingers slip behind her knee, finding the place she’s most ticklish. “This way,” he adds, grinning when she can’t help but giggle. 

“Stop,” she whispers, but she’s smiling at him. 

His eyes focus on her mouth for a beat before he meets her gaze again. “I want to give you your gift,” he says. 

“Jug, I don’t really think - ”

“I found the book you got me,” he says. “So it’s only fair.” 

Betty nods. “Okay. Did - ”

“It was a great gift,” he says before she can even finish her question. He heads back into the living room and then returns with a box so small it doesn’t even fill the palm of his hand when he holds it out to her. Betty can tell that it’s a ring box, and she looks at him with a degree of confusion, but he just says, “Open it.”

So she does. Inside she finds a ring that looks like it has two parts, a wider band with a slightly slimmer band inside it. The thinner band has pale blue gems embedded in it. 

“It’s a worry ring,” Jughead explains. He takes it out of the box and slides it halfway down his own thumb; he spins the thinner band within the thicker one to demonstrate how it works. “Something else to do with your hands,” he says in a quieter voice. 

Betty doesn’t know what to say. She holds out her right hand and lets him slip it onto her ring finger, and then she gives the band an experimental spin. She swallows. “Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome, baby,” he says, and it makes her throat ache, just how well he _knows_ her. After a beat, he says in a lighter voice, “Do you want some real breakfast? Toast? Eggs?”

The worry ring reminds her of her worries. She remembers the closet, the guns, the photograph of her taken without her knowledge; she remembers her hurt, her uncertainty, her fear. 

“You should probably go,” she says, and Jughead doesn’t argue. 

 

 

Betty Skypes with Kevin, has a long phone conversation with Veronica, and trades some texts with Archie. She tries to be cheerful for them and she asks questions about their gifts, about the meals they’re going to eat, about how much they’ve already spoiled their appetites with candy from their stockings. Archie tells her that his mom is in town and both his parents have asked if she’d like to come over for dinner, but she declines the offer as politely as she can. 

She doesn’t tell any of them about her conversation with Jughead, about the threats from the Greendale gang, or about exactly what’s going on with the guns. She smiles at Kevin and laughs with Veronica and sends silly emojis to Archie. She needs time to think. 

 

 

On New Year’s Eve, Betty takes off Veronica’s pyjamas and puts on her own clothes, black skinny jeans and an old, comfy pink sweater. She ties her hair up into her trademark ponytail, tightening it until it almost hurts. 

She takes the bus to Sunnyside, and halfway through her walk to FP’s trailer she’s bombarded by a mass of white fur, made even whiter by the snow, barking gleefully. 

She laughs even as Hot Dog gets muddy paw prints all over her grey coat. “ _Hey_ , buddy,” she says. When she leans down to pat him, he licks her entire cheek. “That’s disgusting,” she tells him, still smiling. “But I missed you, too.” 

At the trailer, she knocks on the door and takes a deep breath, drawing herself up to her full height. 

Jughead is surprised to see her, she can see it in his face. Beyond the surprise, he looks so tired, dark circles beneath his eyes and a sad twist to his lips. “Betty.” 

“Hi,” she says. “Can I… come in?”

He steps back so that she can walk inside. She’s about to toe off her boots when he says, “I packed your stuff up for you.” He gestures to a bag atop the kitchen table. “If that’s what you’re here for.”

“I - no,” she says. “I’m here to talk.” 

“It’s okay, Betts,” he says. His voice sounds worn out and scratchy. “You don’t have to say anything.” 

“Of course I do,” she says, frowning. “We can’t pretend this never happened.”

Jughead nods slowly. “I agree.” He clears his throat. “How’d you get here? You want me to call you a cab to take you back? The bag’s kind of heavy.” 

Betty blinks at him for a beat before she understands. “Jug - Juggie, I’m not breaking up with you.” 

Her confusion is mirrored in his face. “Of course you are.” 

Betty’s eyebrows shoot up. “Excuse me?” 

“Betty… ” He turns away from her, running a hand through his hair. “Come on, we have to be realistic. What other option is there?”

“I’ll tell you what other option there is.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “You let me come with you. Next time you go to Greendale. To… make a delivery.” 

He turns to look at her incredulously. “ _What_?”

“Let me come with you,” she says steadily. “I’m not scared of them, Jughead.”

“Betty. Fuck. Don’t be stupid. You should be scared of them. _I’m_ scared of them.”

“They can’t do this,” she says. “They can’t do this to you - they can’t _force_ you into illegal dealings by threatening me.” She takes a step closer to him. “So let me tell them I’m not scared. And that you’re done.” 

Jughead blows out a breath. “Betty.” He pauses and then starts again with, “Elizabeth,” as if this is a situation that calls for full names. “A biker gang dealing in weapons is not going to listen to a _sixteen year old_ girl in a _pink sweater_.”

She knows this. She knows her plan is foolish and reckless and unlikely to work - but this, _them_ , they’ve been all those things too. “We have to try,” she tells him. “Even if this isn’t the way, there has to be _a_ way. You can’t sell guns, Jug. You can’t.” 

He nods, not looking at her. She can see that he’s chewing the inside of a cheek. “What you’re really saying,” he says, “is that you can’t live with me if I do.”

“Can you live with _yourself_?” she asks quietly. 

“I have to,” he says, helpless and annoyed all at once. “I have no other choice.”

“Tell them no!” Also annoyed now, she adds, “ _Forsythe._ ” 

“Betty.” He moves toward her and puts his hands firmly on her shoulders. “It’s too late for _just say no_. I don’t know what they’d do to me, but it wouldn’t be good. Those guys in Greendale - they don’t do compromise.” 

“Can’t your dad - ”

“No,” he cuts in, his voice soft but firm. “He can’t.”

Her eyes move over his face, searching for answers, for solutions. “Then we’ll leave,” she finally says. “Leave Riverdale.”

Jughead drops his hands, sighing heavily. “And go where?” 

“I don’t know, but - ”

“We’re still in high school, Betty.” 

“We’ll get our GEDs,” she says. “We’re both smart enough.” 

“Jesus,” he sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. “What about money?” 

She bites her bottom lip for a beat and then says, “My dad. He came to see me the other day. He feels bad. He offered me money, I can - ”

Jughead is already shaking his head. “So, what happens, exactly? Hal gives you five hundred dollars and we survive on that for… how long?” 

“We’ll get jobs!” 

“We’d be homeless,” he says. “At least for a while. There’s no way we could - ”

“We’ll _figure it out_ ,” Betty says. She can hear the desperation seeping into her own voice. “We always do.” 

Jughead stares at her for a moment and she stares back, breathing heavily, anxiously awaiting whatever he’ll say next, but in the end he doesn’t say anything. He crosses the space between them and wraps her up in a bone-crushing hug, his fingers digging into her coat, his nose pressed into her hair. Betty hugs him back, tucking her face against his shoulder. Her heart is racing. 

He pulls away from her very slowly, putting space between them one inch at a time until they’re no longer touching. 

“Juggie?” she asks quietly. She can’t read his eyes. 

He licks his lips and then says, in a measured voice. “I’m sorry, Betty. You don’t know how sorry I am. I - I knew from that first day I kissed you that we were on borrowed time, but I loved you, and I didn’t want to admit it, and I - I should have said something long before you moved in here. I should have said no when you wanted to.” 

She shakes her head. “We’re not - ”

He interrupts her. “You deserve so much more than this life, than this place.” He throws a hand out, gesturing to the trailer. “More than me, and how fucked up I am, and all the bullshit that follows me around. You always have, and I’ve always known it, and I - I’m sorry I let you get this deep into it. But your future, it - it can still be good. It _should_ still be good; you can still get out of here.” There is an intensity in his voice that almost frightens her. “You have to get out of here.” 

“Jug, stop - ”

“We’ve hit our expiration date. You know that, I know you do. You don’t want to see it, but that’s where we are. We can’t stretch it out any longer, it’s… ” He trails off, and then says, thickly, “It’s done. We’re done.” 

“Jug.” Betty takes a step toward him, to correct him, to fix this, but he moves away from her. He walks into the kitchen and gets her bag. 

“Go back to Veronica’s,” he says. His eyes are dark, his face closed off. “Hell, go back to Archie’s. You were right to go to him. You - you should go have that. That love story you deserved all along.” 

Stunned and breathless, she says, “ _No_ ,” but Jughead pushes the bag gently into her hands and opens the trailer door. He steers her outside with a hand at the small of her back, refusing to meet her eyes, and it’s only when the wind hits her face that Betty finds her voice. “Jughead,” she begins, whirling around to face him again. 

But he shakes his head. And he closes the door. 

 

 

Back at the Pembrooke, Betty locks the door, sets her bag down neatly in a corner, and walks to Veronica’s en suite bathroom with measured footsteps. Once there, still unhurried, she kneels on the floor, lifts the toilet seat - and promptly throws up everything in her stomach and then some. 

Afterward, her throat burning with bile, she sits down with her back against the bathtub, pulls her phone from her pocket and dials with shaky fingers. 

“Hey, lady, how’re you doing?” Veronica answers, and Betty’s composure snaps. 

Through a sound that can only be described as a wail, she says, “ _He dumped me_.” 

For several minutes Betty cries uncontrollably, sobbing so hard she feels like she’s not getting enough oxygen, and Veronica makes soft, soothing sounds, calls Betty _honey_ and tells her to take deep breaths. 

Sounding worried, Veronica eventually says, “Betty, hey. Hey, listen to me. Put your head between your knees. Try to breathe right into your stomach.” 

Betty struggles to suck in a breath, but her efforts are broken by a fresh batch of sobs. 

“Okay,” Veronica says. “Betty, it’s okay. You’re okay. Please try and breathe. I - I’m going to call Archie.”

“ _No,_ ” Betty says vehemently in her choked, wet voice. She doesn’t want to see Archie, not with Jughead’s words about _the love story she deserves_ echoing in her head. 

“I have to,” Veronica says, sounding increasingly concerned. “You can’t be alone right now, and I can’t get there until tomorrow at the earliest, and Kevin’s in Florida with his family. Just - just stay where you are, and try to breathe, honey, okay? As deep as you can. I love you,” she adds, and hangs up. 

 

 

Smithers lets Archie into the apartment. Betty is vaguely aware of the sound of the door opening and closing, of Archie’s voice calling her name, and then of his sock feet appearing in front of her. 

“Betty,” he says quietly, crouching down in front of her. “Hey… ” He reaches out to hug her and she shakes her head, leaning back into the side of the bathtub like she wants to disappear into it. “Okay, okay,” he says quickly, like she’s a spooked animal, carefully sitting down next to her. 

“He broke up with me,” she whispers. 

“Then he’s an idiot, Betts.”

“He’s not.” She shakes her head, biting down hard on her bottom lip to stop it from quivering. 

“I’m sorry,” Archie says softly. “I really am.”

Betty nods, drawing her knees into her chest. She drops her forehead down against one of her kneecaps. 

Archie gets up, rustles around, and runs water. When he sits back down, he reaches for her hands and uncurls her fists. He presses a warm, wet washcloth against her fresh half-moon cuts, making her hiss with pain and lift her head. 

“Sorry,” he says, grimacing. He’s very careful as he starts wiping the cuts individually. 

“Archie,” she whispers. She feels exhausted to the very core of her being. “What’m I going to do?”

He looks up at her, and the seriousness of his expression is faintly startling. He meets her eyes and holds her gaze steadily. 

“Be okay,” he says. “You’re going to be okay.”

 

 

Betty’s brief move into the Lodge apartment becomes a permanent one. 

Veronica and her mother are incredibly kind to Betty, just as they were to her sister, once. Hermione takes her to see a doctor, who says she should dial back on some of her extracurriculars and writes her a prescription for an SSRI. At the appointment, Betty smiles politely and keeps her hands folded neatly in her lap; she does not show the doctor the scars on her palms. 

The pills make Betty feel sleepy and faintly disengaged, and leave her with a perpetually dry mouth. On doctor’s orders, she quits prom committee and the River Vixens, but keeps up with her tutoring schedule and the Blue & Gold. 

Betty does her homework at the Lodges’ expansive dining room table and sleeps in their lavish guest room under silky violet sheets. She breaks her days into sections that must be completed: Get up. Go to school and volunteer to solve calc problems in front of the class. Write an article for the paper. Work a shift at Pop’s. Find a smile somewhere inside herself and drag it out to prove to Veronica that she’s doing okay. Get back into bed and think about crying. 

When she sees something black and boy-shaped in her peripheral vision, her stomach flips. It’s never him, though. She doesn’t see Jughead again, not for weeks. 

 

 

Her mother comes into the diner. 

It’s a fairly quiet Sunday, and Betty is momentarily struck speechless and still when she looks up from reading about the Treaty of Versailles and sees Alice Cooper walk into Pop’s, looking perfectly put together as always. Polly is behind her, steering the twins’ stroller. 

Alice stops in front of the counter, chin lifted, purse hooked into the crook of her arm. “Elizabeth,” she says. 

Betty stares at her mother for a beat and then peeks behind her. “Pol…?”

Polly smiles at her and mouths, _It’s okay._

Impatient with Betty’s hesitance, Alice says, “I’d like to talk.” 

She still can’t muster up the words to speak to her mother after all these months, but Betty waves to one of the many unoccupied booths, indicating that her family should sit. She steps out from behind the counter and moves toward them, cautiously sliding into the booth next to Polly. Half a minute later her niece Lizzie is in her arms, smiling up at her and reaching for the nametag on Betty’s uniform. 

On the other side of the table, Alice folds her hands in front of her, all business. “Elizabeth, I’m assuming you’re aware that Cheryl Blossom has asked your sister to move to Connecticut with her.”

Betty nods. 

“Your father and I don’t necessarily… approve of this plan. But, as Polly has _repeatedly_ pointed out to us,” Alice says, arching an eyebrow in her older daughter’s direction, “She is an adult, and she’s made this decision with her future and the future of her children in mind.” 

Polly nods. She’s sitting close to Betty with Jason on her lap, her eyes soft and encouraging. “I want you to come with us, Betty.” 

Betty feels her eyes widen slightly as she glances back and forth between her mother and sister. “What?”

“I want you to come to New Haven. There are great schools there; you can finish high school at whichever one you want. Cheryl’s renting a townhouse, so there will be room. And you’d get to be there, to watch them grow up.” Polly tilts her head toward Lizzie, who has sleepily nestled her head against Betty’s shoulder. “What do you say?” 

Betty opens her mouth, but no words come out. After a moment of silence, her mother says, “Your father and I have agreed that this plan is for the best. We’ll help you. If you want to go to a private school, we’ll pay your tuition.” 

“ _Why?_ ” Betty finally manages to ask. “Why are you… ”

“Sweetheart.” Alice reaches across the table and touches Betty’s cheek so tenderly that it makes Betty tremble, makes her feel like she’s melting back into childhood, like she needs her mom. “We think it’s a good idea. Don’t you?” In her impeccably made-up face, her eyes are sad. “You have so many opportunities ahead of you, Elizabeth.”

“But,” Betty says quietly, “this past year - ”

“Oh, honey,” Alice says, and there it is, that breezy tone of hers that always slides over Betty’s protests. “When you’re older, all this will feel like it was a dream. Go with your sister. Get a great education. Become the woman I know you can be. You’ll look back at this time and it will just be a memory.” 

“Come with me, Betty,” Polly says softly. “It’ll be good. I promise.”

Betty’s bottom lip quivers. “Mom,” she says quietly. There is so much more to say that she doesn’t even know where to begin. 

“It’s alright, honey,” Alice says, like Betty is the one who needs forgiveness. “It’s alright,” she says, and Betty realizes that her mother thinks she’s won, that she had a thankless child who refused to heed her advice, and now that Betty’s relationship is over and everything about her life seems brittle, breakable, Alice can rest assured that she was right all along. 

“Okay,” Betty says tiredly. Her fight is long gone. “I’ll go.” 

Polly slips an arm around her in a warm hug, and Alice smiles.

Maybe her mother did win, she thinks. Which means that Betty has lost.

 

 

At the Pembrooke that same evening, she tells her friends. 

Veronica’s eyes fill with tears almost immediately. She says, “B, you can stay here. Through senior year. I swear, my mom is fine with it. You can stay.” 

“V, I love you,” Betty says softly. “And thank you. But this is… this is the best thing. I’ll get to be with Polly and the twins, and…”

“Away from He Who Shall Not Be Named,” Kevin says. 

Betty slides him a look, but says, “Yeah.” 

“I can’t be at Riverdale High without my other half,” Veronica says, her eyes dark and sad. 

“Hey, you have me,” Archie says softly, slipping an arm around her. 

“No offense, Archiekins,” she sighs. “But it’s not the same.” She looks at Betty. “Maybe you should take a bit more time to think about it.” 

Betty meets her eyes and says seriously, “I will miss you _so_ much. All of you. But I’m going. I have to go.” When tears slip down Veronica’s cheeks, Betty sighs and shifts over on the sofa to give her a hug. Since Archie’s arm is already around Veronica, they end up in a tangle of limbs, a group hug that Kevin joins, his chin resting on Betty’s shoulder. 

When they finally pull apart, Kevin’s eyes are as wet as Veronica’s and Archie has a somber look on his face, the one that sometimes makes Betty want to laugh inappropriately since it’s so at odds with his features. 

“Betty,” he says, “are you sure this is what you want?” 

She shrugs and offers him a sad smile. “I tried what I wanted, Arch. It didn’t work out so well.”

 

 

Late in the evening at Pop’s, Archie dunks fries into a vanilla milkshake and Betty perches on the edge of the other side of the booth, ready to hop up if any customers come in. 

“Can you… I don’t know, look out for him?” she asks quietly, tentatively. “Just so that he doesn’t…”

Archies sighs and pushes his milkshake away. “I don’t even know if we’re friends anymore. And it’s not like he’d tell me if he got in way over his head with the Serpents.” 

“He already is in over his head.” 

“I don’t think I can put a stop to that. Why would he listen to me? And honestly, Betts, after what happened with my dad last year, knowing that Jug’s selling guns - I don’t know if I’d even want to talk to him. It's just… it's so shitty." 

She digs her fingers into small handfuls of the skirt of her uniform rather than into her own skin. “He needs someone, Arch.” 

“He had someone,” Archie says pointedly. “You.” 

Betty doesn’t have anything to say to that. She looks at him sadly, and Archie looks back at her with an apology in his eyes. They sit in silence for several minutes, until the door chimes, and she gets up to deliver menus. 

 

 

In the very early hours of the morning, Betty tiptoes out of the Lodge apartment, closing the door behind her carefully so that it makes as little noise as possible. She heads downstairs and goes out the back doors, into the small alleyway behind the building. 

She stands beside a dumpster. It smells like garbage, and the sickeningly floral scent of some sort of air freshener, and just the barest hint of fresh-cut grass, signalling the beginning of spring. Betty wants to believe in beginnings. She wants to believe she’s in the midst of her very own. 

She takes the leather jacket in her hands and folds it into a ball. She winds her arm back a bit and flings it upward. It flies through the air, uncoiling from its ball, and lands in the dumpster with a quiet crunching sound. 

Betty stands there in the alleyway, the wind raising goosebumps on her bare arms, the strange smell of garbage masked by flowers invading her nostrils. Her throat aches with unshed tears. 

She goes back into the Pembrooke, and when the door slams closed behind her, it doesn’t feel at all like a beginning. It feels like the end. 

 

 

  
fin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nobody panic! This series will have a third part, and I hope you'll stick with me for it. 
> 
> Thank you, once again, for reading. I appreciate your feedback immensely. I've been kind of out of fandom for a bit now, so getting to chat with you guys in the comments has sort of made me feel welcomed back, lol. Let me know what you thought of this final chapter!
> 
> Also - I am totally willing to accept Riverdale prompts (song lyrics, scenarios, whatever). I can't guarantee that I'll write any given prompt, but I'd be happy to receive 'em. You can leave those in my askbox on tumblr; I'm at lessoleilscouchants. I'm also down to just chat about these crazy kids.


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